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The Nisour Square massacre occurred on September 16, 2007, when employees of Blackwater Security Consulting (now Constellis), a private military company contracted by the United States government to provide security services in Iraq, shot at Iraqi civilians, killing 17 and injuring 20 in Nisour Square, Baghdad, while escorting a U.S. embassy convoy.
Academi, formerly known as Blackwater and Blackwater Worldwide, is an American private military contractor founded on December 26, 1997, [2] by former Navy SEAL officer Erik Prince. [3] [4] It was renamed Xe Services in 2009, and was again renamed to Academi in 2011, after it was acquired by a group of private investors. [5]
In Iraq, the issue of accountability, especially in the case of contractors carrying weapons, is sensitive. One major incident in 2007 involved Blackwater guards who killed 17 Iraqi civilians in a mass shooting in Nisour Square. Iraq's government maintained that this was murder but was unable to prosecute the guards because they had immunity.
U.S. President Donald Trump's pardon of four American men convicted of killing Iraqi civilians while working as contractors in 2007 violated U.S. obligations under international law, U.N. human ...
The pardons of four Blackwater contractors has reignited anger over one of the most disturbing episodes in the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq.
The 2004 Fallujah ambush occurred on March 31, 2004, when Iraqi insurgents attacked a convoy containing four American contractors from the private military company Blackwater USA who were conducting a delivery for food caterers ESS. [1]
Scahill's first book, The New York Times bestseller Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army, [52] thoroughly revised and updated to include the Nisour Square massacre, was released in paperback edition in 2008. [53] [54] Blackwater depicts the rise of the controversial military contracting firm Blackwater, now called ...
The troop level for the initial invasion of Iraq was controversial throughout the run-up to the war, particularly among U.S. military personnel. In 1999, then head of United States Central Command Marine General Anthony Zinni (ret.) organised a series of war games known as Desert Crossing to assess an invasion aimed at unseating Saddam Hussein.