[99], Clemency caused outrage among Iraqi citizens and family members of the victims. and thus prosecution by U.S. He was driving on flat tires and with a shattered windshield. Ali was the youngest of Blackwaters victims that day. "We've backed off that. Defense lawyers for the four veterans, who were working as contractors for the State Department at the time of the killings, argued that they had returned fire only after being ambushed by Iraqi insurgents. The massacre took place in 2007, when the four were working as guards for Blackwater, a private military contractor, on an assignment in Baghdad. [19] A Blackwater spokeswoman responded to the findings by saying Blackwater "supports the stringent accountability of the industry. By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use. [3][84] Prosecutors stated they reached their decision after an "assessment of the admissible evidence against him". They claimed they were fired on, but prosecutors said the Blackwater guards opened fire first. Mohammed had not been shot. Russian-American political scientist Malek Dudakov called the shooting a landmark event and a major international scandal. Prosecutors asserted the heavily armed Raven 23 Blackwater convoy launched an unprovoked attack using sniper fire, machine-guns and grenade launchers. Witnesses described how the American men ambushed the civilians unprovoked, firing on Baghdad's Nisour Square with heavy gunfire and grenade launchers. As he was leaving, his youngest son, who was affectionately given the nickname Alawi, asked to go with his father. Donald Trump has pardoned four security guards from the private military firm Blackwater who were serving jail sentences for killing 14 civilians including two children in Baghdad in 2007, a massacre that sparked an international outcry over the use of mercenaries in war. Mohammed and his sister screamed for their children to get down. [37], Blackwater, which had been operating in Iraq without an Iraqi government license, applied for one after the incident, but the application was rejected by Iraqi officials in January 2009. [26][27] A U.S. Army convoy arrived at 12:39p.m., backed by air cover, to escort TST 22 back to the Green Zone. [41], On September 18, 2007, an Iraqi Interior Ministry spokesman said Blackwater is "not allowed to operate anywhere in the Republic of Iraq". As Mohammed held his sons hand, he convulsed and died in the back of the ambulance. The Machiavellian plan of NATOs military strategists is to establish refugee settlements with the humanitarian assistance in the border regions of Ukraines neighboring countries Poland, Romania, and Bulgaria, and then provide guerrilla warfare training and lethal arms to all able-bodied men of military age in order to bleed Russias security forces in the protracted irregular warfare. (L-r) Dustin Heard, Evan Liberty, Paul Slough, Nicholas Slatten. The Iraqi government and Iraqi police investigator Faris Saadi Abdul stated that the killings were unprovoked. Russias reluctant and delayed military intervention in Ukraine is fundamentally a war of power projection, a shot across the bow to perfidious former allies, the East European states, whove been joining the EU and NATO in droves since the break-up of Soviet Union in 1991, that the collective security of Eurasian nations is a shared responsibility, and NATOs eastward expansion along Russias western flank not only imperils the security of resurgent Russia but also compromises the balance of power in the multipolar world. [41] Senate Democratic leaders said they planned to pass similar legislation as soon as possible. [29] Several sources have stated that the explosion was caused by a mortar round, though this is not reflected in the State Department's incident report. [6][86] Bringing the weapons charges was disputed within the Justice Department, which initially opposed including them in the indictment. When #Blackwater mercenaries were murdering civilians in the #IraqWar, did these voices demand seizure of yachts owned by CEO Erik Prince? [100] UN Human Rights Office spokeswoman Marta Hurtado said that forgiveness "contributes to impunity and has the effect of encouraging others to commit such crimes in the future". [1][2][3] The killings outraged Iraqis and strained relations between Iraq and the United States. It was funded with millions that. My clients assuredly feel ignored, mistreated, and used. "This was Baghdad's Bloody Sunday," Dickinson told NPR's Mary Louise Kelly on Wednesday. Free shipping for many products! I know that each of them placed great faith in the U.S. legal system. https://www.ournewearthnews.com/2022/03/04/massacre-in-ukraine-caught-on-camera-and-probably-still-unfolding-viewer-discretion-advised-please-pray/. Only. The hallways were full. Trump pardons ex-campaign aide and disgraced Republican lawmakers, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. "How are. After selling Blackwater to a group of investors in 2010, Erik Prince, a former US Navy Seals officer and the swashbuckling founder of Blackwater, has founded another security company Frontier Services Group, registered at Hong Kong Stock Exchange, that advises and provides aviation and logistical solutions to Chinese oligarchs for the security of their lucrative business projects in Africa. The Nisour Square massacre was the FBI's most comprehensive and expensive criminal investigation since 9/11. [24] The driver of the Kia was shot once in the head by a Blackwater contractor and was killed. The U.N. Human Rights Office says it's "deeply concerned" by the pardons. [4] In 2014, four Blackwater employees were tried[5] and convicted in U.S. federal court; one of murder, and the other three of manslaughter and firearms charges;[6] all four convicted were controversially pardoned[7] by President Donald Trump in December 2020,[8] in violation of international law. Before Nord Stream Sabotage, VT RADIO: Exposing East Palestine Train Derailment Disaster with VTs Jack Heart, Dr. Fauci Admits COVID Shots Didnt Have A Chance Of Controlling The Pandemic, More Home Care Services Needed for Military Veterans, VA is Lying Facebook Group is Social Media Done Right, Pregnant Dog Found Starving to Death in Cage Needs Help to be Reunited With Marine Who Rescued Her, Healthy Eating Options More Accessible to Military Community through the Exchange, Israels Illegal Violent Occupation: When De-Escalate Means Ramp Up, Citizen Kane Rupert Murdoch Openly Admits Fox News is Complete Bullshit. I commented when the convictions were first brought that I was certain my clients who were still residents of Iraq were pleased to know that justice had been served. Blackwater has been renamed and falls under the Constellis group of companies, a risk management business formed in 2010. [21]:116, During opening arguments for a criminal trial held in 2014, defense lawyers representing former Blackwater members of Raven 23 argued the men felt the approaching Kia was a credible threat as a possible car bomb, and opened fire in self-defense. It remains unclear whether the team member mistook the civilians for insurgents. Machine gunfire would cause his lifeless body to shake in his pool of blood. Blackwater was founded by Erik Prince, whose sister, Betsy DeVos, was appointed Trumps education secretary. To understand the carnage that happened on the streets that day, you need to hear it in Mohammeds words as he explained it to me. He was in the car next to Mohammed. Before embarking on the clandestine Kyiv visit, Erik Prince consulted with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Director National Intelligence Avril Haines, with whom his relationship goes a long way the back to the early nineties after she purchased a bar in Fells Point, Baltimore, which had been seized in a drug raid. "On what basis did Trump depend on to release them? Although NATO powers did provide Stingers to their jihadist proxies that helped turn the tide in the Soviet-Afghan war in the eighties, since then, despite providing anti-tank munitions and rest of weapons to militant groups during the proxy wars in Libya and Syria, Western powers have consistently avoided providing MANPADS to proxy forces, because such deadly anti-aircraft munitions could become a long-term threat not only to military aircraft but also to civilian airlines. "Today we were surprised that the American president issued a decision to pardon these criminals, murderers and thugs," Salman said, speaking from Baghdad. [44] Blackwater's operations on behalf of the U.S. Department of State and the CIA may be unaffected by license revocation. They beat citizens and scorn them. It wasnt unusual for regular U.S. Army convoys to stop traffic. The fire has since been extinguished after the plant was captured by Russian troops and no radiation leakage has been detected. But when the shooting started, his life and the lives of his entire family changed forever. Dickinson says that the victims' families are likely to feel let down and abandoned by the U.S. government. The massacre resulted in the deaths of 17 unarmed Iraqis and wounded at least 20 others. But its the much more subtle and insidious tactic of economic warfare for which Russia has no antidote, as the global neocolonial order is being led by the United States and its Western European clients since the signing of the Bretton Woods Accord in 1945 following the Second World War. When he arrived at the hospital, it was a war zone. And afterward, Iraqi citizens wanted to ensure that those who had done this were held responsible. Three former employees of the US private military contractor once known as Blackwater were sentenced to 30 years in prison on Monday and a fourth received a life sentence . Although the Pentagons military contractors have been known to be training and advising several brigades of neo-Nazis backed by Ukraines security forces in the Donbas region since 2014, Erik Prince along with his associates from several other private security firms providing military contractors to the US Department of Defense personally visited Kyiv early last month following the Russian troop build-up and met with security officials of the Zelensky regime, according to informed sources. The black-ops of NATOs mercenaries in Ukraine were being directed from Ukraines Security Service (SSU) headquarter and the main center for information and psychological operations in Kyiv. The shooting ended as suddenly as it started. Following Russias intervention in Ukraine, Germany alone hasproudly bragged[4] of dispatching caches of 500 US-made surface-to-air Stinger missiles and 2,700 Soviet-era, shoulder-fired Strelamissiles to Ukraines conscript military. Scores of Iraqis injured in anti-government protests in Baghdad, Who will protect us?: Baghdad residents wait out fighting as city grinds to halt, Iraqi cleric tells loyalists to return to their homes after fighting in Baghdad, Deadly violence in Baghdad after leading cleric Moqtada al-Sadr says he is quitting politics, Shia factions mass in Baghdad raising fears of more unrest, Protesters storm Iraq parliament again amid unrest over Iran-backed groups, Iran may eventually get its way in protracted power struggle in Iraq, Hundreds of protesters storm Iraq parliament in support of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, Briton jailed in Iraq for smuggling antiquities to be freed, says lawyer. Its worth recalling that before the Biden-Putin summit at Geneva last June, Russia had a similar troop build-up along Ukraines borders. He was shot while seated in a public bus. Ukraine War Anniversary: UN and China Work for Peace, Devilish Zelensky, Kiev Hid Its Dead Soldiers in the Ravines. The Blackwater guards appeared to have fired grenade launchers in addition to machine guns, according to the report. Their route home was through Nisour Square. At the sentencing, the US attorneys office said in a statement: The sheer amount of unnecessary human loss and suffering attributable to the defendants criminal conduct on 16 September 2007 is staggering., After news of the pardon emerged on Tuesday night, Brian Heberlig, a lawyer for one of the four pardoned Blackwater defendants, said: Paul Slough and his colleagues didnt deserve to spend one minute in prison. [72] A sixth Blackwater guard, Jeremy Ridgeway of California, struck a deal with prosecutors on December 4, 2008 and pleaded guilty to one count each of voluntary manslaughter, attempted manslaughter, and aiding and abetting,[72][3] and agreed to testify against the other five men. But supporters of the military contractors, who argued the investigation was tainted and the punishments too severe, cheered the news. When Mohammed saw the convoy enter the traffic circle, he initially thought they were regular U.S. Army members. Although Mohammed was going to return quickly with his sister and Alis cousins for a visit, Mohammed told his son that he could go with him. The My Lai massacre took place on 16 March 1968. Adela Sulimanis a London-based reporter for NBC News Digital. hide caption. Blackwater Mercenaries: NATOs Secret Weapon in Ukraine War, VT RADIO: Alternative Foreign Policy Talk, Khazarian Mafia at War: The Jewish Oligarch Who Planned the Terror, Russias Future Predicted by Well-Known Christian Saints, Most Front-Line Ukrainian Soldiers Killed Within 4 Hours, How Russia managed to survive Western sanctions, How War Began The Genesis of NATOs Coup in Ukraine , From Global Warming Denial to Holocaust Denial, On this day in 1940, Woody Guthrie writes This Land Is, Former U.S. President Carter to Hospice, Will Pariah Trump Attend State, Dr. Fauci Admits COVID Shots Didnt Have A Chance Of Controlling. Sarah Holewinski, Washington director at Human Rights Watch, said Trump's pardons were an insult to justice, "but it's also an insult to the victims. Each time the criminal charges were seemed lost, the U.S. Department of Justice told them they were not forgotten that we would continue to pursue the convictions of those who committed the crimes against them. What Is Blackwater? Despite the public display of uncharacteristic valor by sporting military fatigues and flaunting images and video clips of soldiers proudly standing beside caches of MANPADS and Javelins on social media, Ukraines conscript army was so frightened following Russias military intervention that it wanted to surrender territory and opted instead for mounting guerrilla warfare by adopting hit-and-run tactics from the safety of border regions of Poland and Romania. He suffered from his wounds for over a year until he died from a brain injury. However, after "Raven 23" entered Nisour Square, Watson was ordered to "lock down the traffic circle to expedite the travel of [the other Blackwater team]". [15] The incident sparked at least five investigations, including one from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Let us assume that I travel to America and kill 17 American citizens. It was an honor to represent these victims and their families. The aide also said that the Iraqi government was pushing for an apology, compensation for victims or their families and for the guards involved in the shooting to be held "accountable". [71], In December 2008, the United States Department of Justice announced it was filing criminal charges against five of the Blackwater employees, and ordered them to surrender to the FBI. The Nisour Square massacre was one of the most prominent events of the US-Iraq conflict, raising doubts about America's true intentions in the region. How many covert wars, miscarriages of justice, and dystopian technologies would remain hidden if our reporters werent on the beat? Dozens of witnesses were brought to the United States to testify about what happened on September 16, 2007. Who would be responsible for the myopic and vindictive policy of providing anti-aircraft munitions to Ukraines irregular militias once Kyiv falls and those MANPADS are found in black markets posing a grave risk to civilian airlines across the globe? He was shot through the roof of his car as the Blackwater convoy drove past firing down into traffic. Nicholas Slatten, 35, was a former security guard at the private US military firm Blackwater and was based in Baghdad. They claimed they were fired on, but. Iraqi authorities say 17 people were killed; the Department of Justice has said the total was 14. When Mohammed looked to his right, the driver of the car next to him shouted that the soldiers had just shot into another car in front of them. Who would hold party elites accountable to the values they proclaim to have? Also quoted in the memorandum was David Boslego, a retired US army colonel, who said the massacre was a grossly excessive use of force and grossly inappropriate for an entity whose only job was to provide personal protection to somebody in an armoured vehicle. Mohammed was glad Saddams reign of terror was finally ending. ", Download the NBC News app for breaking news and politics, Jasem Mohammed Hashem, who was working as a police officer when he was shot in the head in the attack, was also disappointed by Trump's decision to free the men who, he said, "opened fire randomly at the citizens.". Their belief in our legal system was misplaced. Blackwater is an American private military company . Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) - On Tuesday, Trump the Mad pardoned 4 Blackwater mercenaries who killed 14 Iraqi civilians, including a nine-year-old boy, with indiscriminate fire at Nisour Square in downtown Baghdad on September 14, 2007. It is unfortunate and sad that those efforts have now been wasted. The key people in this have not spoken with investigators. In 2014, four former government contractors who worked for Blackwater Worldwide, a security firm founded by Erik Prince an ally of Trump and the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos were convicted in federal court in Washington in connection with the killings. [3] Erik Prince provided weapons and aircraft to eastern Libyas warlord Khalifa Haftar: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/25/world/middleeast/libya-mercenaries-arms-embargo.html. The 14 victims killed by the Blackwater guards on trial were listed as Ahmed Haithem Ahmed Al Rubiay, Mahassin Mohssen Kadhum Al-Khazali, Osama Fadhil Abbas, Ali Mohammed Hafedh Abdul Razzaq, Mohamed Abbas Mahmoud, Qasim Mohamed Abbas Mahmoud, Saadi Ali Abbas Alkarkh, Mushtaq Karim Abd Al-Razzaq, Ghaniyah Hassan Ali, Ibrahim Abid Ayash, Hamoud Saeed Abttan, Uday Ismail Ibrahiem, Mahdi Sahib Nasir and Ali Khalil Abdul Hussein. After the convictions, Blackwater which changed its name to Xe and then Academi after being sold said it was relieved that the justice system has completed its investigation into a tragedy that occurred at Nisour Square in 2007 and that any wrongdoing that was carried out has been addressed by our courts. He could not understand what was happening or why. [26][29], An Iraqi government account of the incident stated that as the convoy drew close to Nisour Square, a Kia sedan with a woman and her adult son in it was approaching the square from a distance, driving slowly on the wrong side of the road, and that the driver ignored a police officer's whistle to clear a path for the convoy. None of the bullets the lab had available could be matched to the rifles used by the guards. The risk is now that the U.S., who has a presence worldwide, has exposure for how they might be treated or what people of other countries might think could happen or would happen if war crimes are committed by U.S. citizens abroad. The four armed contractors, Scott Helvenston, Jerry Zovko, Wesley Batalona, and Mike Teague, were killed and dragged from their vehicles. The Nisour Square Massacre, in which Blackwater mercenaries fired hundreds of rounds in a crowded Baghdad traffic square, killing fourteen Iraqis, including ten women and two children, and . Ghasson Mahmood was a 55-year-old civil engineer. The four guards Paul Slough, Evan Liberty, Dustin Heard and Nicholas Slatten were part of an armoured convoy that opened fire indiscriminately with machine-guns, grenade launchers and a sniper on a crowd of unarmed people in a square in the Iraqi capital. The hospital was too busy. That day destroyed me completely, Kinani said. LONDON and BAGHDAD -- When news broke that Mohammed Kinani's son's killers, Blackwater private military contractors hired by the U.S. government in Baghdad, were pardoned Wednesday by President Trump, Kinani said it was like losing his 9-year-old boy all over again. Sequence of events triggering the Nisour Square massacre, Military Extraterritorial Jurisdiction Act, Private Security Company Association of Iraq, House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security, Inspector General of the U.S. State Department, United States District Court for the District of Columbia, Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, "U.S. Extending the hand of friendship, Russia significantly drawdown its forces along the western border before the summit last year. Ali was slumped over against the glass. [45] Also, it is not clear whether the license revocation is permanent. I felt I had done that, and I knew the prosecutors were doing that. They are coming to defend freedom, defend life. It looks at the rise of private security contractors such as Blackwater in the era of modern warfare. [4] Germany to ship anti-aircraft missiles to Ukraine: https://www.dw.com/en/germany-to-ship-anti-aircraft-missiles-to-ukraine-reports/a-60995325. His domains of expertise include neocolonialism, military-industrial complex, and petro-imperialism. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Machine gunfire tore through his body. Blackwater Mercenaries Filmed on a Rampage in Iraq & Shooting Civilians from WarPosting After being leaked by a former employee of the notorious PMC, the footage dated April 2006 was featured in a piece called "The Warrior Class" by Charles Glass. Supporters of the former contractors at Blackwater Worldwide had lobbied for the pardons, arguing that the men had been excessively punished. [14], On October 13, 2007, the FBI reported that it had concluded that at least 14 of the 17 Iraqis who died in the square had been killed without cause. Donald Trump has pardoned four security guards from the private military firm Blackwater who were serving jail sentences for killing 14 civilians including two children in Baghdad in 2007, a massacre that sparked an international outcry over the use of mercenaries in war. The result of the long legal battle is that each man was ensured a fair trial, free of partiality and without unjust favor. The committee was co-chaired by Abd al Qadir, the Iraqi Minister of Defense, and Patricia A. Butenis, the Charg d'affaires of the U.S. Embassy in Iraq. As Raven 23 was departing Nisour Square, several members continued to discharge their weapons, causing additional civilian deaths and injuries. Our civil case resulted in a resolution that was acceptable to the parties. A rocket grenade was fired into the car next to him. He was left with shrapnel in his body from the rocket launched grenade that was fired into his vehicle as he escaped. Mohammed met members of the U.S. Army on the streets and handed out candy and juice when he saw them. More than 3,000 troops remain in Iraq, according to defense officials, with a drawdown scheduled for January. Ukrainian POW Unveils, Russian forces eliminating Ukrainian saboteurs that violated border, Greetings from Oujda, Morocco, the City of Mosques, VT RADIO: Exposing East Palestine Train Derailment Disaster with VTs, VT RADIO: Foreign Policy Gone Mad with VTs Senior Editor, VT RADIO: UFOs, Aliens, & Chinese Balloons with VTs Jack, Many Predicted NATO Expansion Would Lead to War. They left in 2011 but returned in 2014 after the Islamic State militant group overran large parts of the country. The man that just spoken to him was dead. "[46] Hasan Jaber Salman, a lawyer who was one of the wounded, said that "no one did anything to provoke Blackwater" and that "as we turned back they opened fire at all cars from behind"[61] An Iraqi police officer who was directing traffic at the scene said Blackwater guards "became the terrorists" when they opened fire on civilians unprovoked, while a businessman said he wasn't seeking compensation but only "the truth" from the guards. In the sheer desperation to inflict maximum material damage to Russias security forces, however, NATO appears to have breached its own long-standing convention of curbing the proliferation of anti-aircraft munitions. While the #RussianOligarchs are vile post-Soviet capitalists, the hypocrisy of the US media is revealing. [54] He served one tour in Iraq before being hired as a Personal Security Specialist in Iraq. "Before he died, he went crazy as he used to go out into the street and whenever he saw a young man, he imagined that he was Mahdi," he said. Iraqi traffic police initially tried to wave down the Blackwater men that there was no threat, but they too had to run for cover. Consider what the world of media would look like without The Intercept. Hassan Salman is among the Iraqis who were shot during the ambush. Each step of the way, the U.S. legal system ensured that these men were given fair and just prosecutions. AP Mohammed turned his bullet-riddled SUV around and drove back to the closest hospital only a few blocks behind him. President Donald Trump's decision to pardon four Blackwater private security contractors convicted of a massacre in Baghdad has been met with fury by the victims' families in Iraq. The report found that the use of contractors such as Blackwater was a "new form of mercenary activity" and illegal under international law; however, the United States is not a signatory of the 1989 UN Mercenary Convention banning the use of mercenaries. On Tuesday, President Trump pardoned four former Blackwater contractors convicted in the killings. Rather than mitigating the suffering of Ukraines disenfranchised masses held hostage by the Zelensky regime, the self-styled champions of human rights are doing all they can to lure Russia into their bear trap project, a term borrowed from the Soviet-Afghan War of the eighties when Western regimes used Pakistans security forces and generous funding from the oil-rich Gulf States for providing guerrilla warfare training and lethal weaponry to Afghan jihadists to bleed the security forces of former the Soviet Union in the protracted war. Not a one! As shootings in the square were not uncommon, it is unclear whether the shells were from the shooting in question or from other incidents. [87], On April 13, 2015, federal district judge Royce C. Lamberth sentenced Slatten to life in prison, while the other three guards were sentenced to 30 years in prison each. The ones who were killed on the street were shot running for their lives. NPR reports that sometime after the Al-Qaeda bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000, where 17 sailors were killed, Blackwater won a $46 million contract from the U.S government for "training sailors in counterterrorism." After the September 11th attacks, Blackwater expanded their security-related work . Then-Vice President Joe Biden held a press conference to tell the citizens of Iraq that they would not be abandoned. He never received treatment. (Iraqi police) or any of the local security forces fired back at them", the official continued. That may be the overriding damage caused by these pardons. "With those sentences reversed by the stroke of a pen, who will trust the American justice system again?". The Kia continued to roll forward after the driver was killed, according to an eyewitness, and Raven 23 continued to fire on it, killing the passenger (the driver's mother); eventually, the Kia was struck by a grenade and was incinerated. He saw the man next to him run. Paul Dickinson[emailprotected]farrin.com. She turned the location into an exotic bookstore and caf, offering erotica readings, among other licentious pastimes. ", Human Rights Watch says the pardons "show contempt for the rule of law.". Blackwater mercenaries in helicopters also fired into traffic from overhead. "[29], On October 4, 2007, the Federal Bureau of Investigation announced that it would be taking the lead in the investigation of the shooting incident. Slattern was sentenced to life and the others to 30 years in prison each. Victims were everywhere. [97], On December 22, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump granted full presidential pardons to Slatten, Slough, Liberty, and Heard.
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