- publish: 6 July 2019
- time: 6:27 pm
- category: Politics
- No: 8978
Blackwater’s footprints found in Afghanistan
Taliban declared in a statement that it has found evidence showing that agents of the infamous US-based security firm, Blackwater, are fighting beside the Afghan security forces.
“Creditable documents have been found which prove Blackwater forces’ presence in Afghanistan,” the statement said on Saturday.
“During clashes between the Afghan security forces and the Taliban in the village of Nasser Koli near Saroubi region in Kabul province on June 26, 18 security forces were killed,” it added.
The statement explained that government forces could only transfer the bodies of their dead colleagues but their caps, military uniforms and other equipment with “Blackwater” labels were left on the battle scene.
US media reports said in 2018 that the founder of Blackwater security firm had been meeting with powerbrokers in Afghanistan to rally support for his plan to privatize the Afghan war.
Erik Prince heads the private military company known as Academi, renamed in 2011.
According to a report in The New York Times, Prince sent a letter to Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in 2017 to secure a meeting, but Ghani refused to meet with him.
Prince, based in the United Arab Emirates, has reportedly been holding regular meetings with influential Afghans, including some who have an eye on Ghani’s job.
In 2007, Blackwater was implicated in the killings of 17 Iraqi civilians by Blackwater guards. The first-degree murder conviction of one of the guards was overturned last year. The US appeals court also ordered that three other defendants be re-sentenced.