Iraq has ordered hundreds of private security guards linked to Blackwater Worldwide to leave the country within seven days or face possible arrest on visa violations.
The order, announced late on Wednesday by the interior minister, comes in the wake of a US judge’s dismissal of criminal charges against five Blackwater guards who were accused in the September 2007 shooting deaths of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad.
It applies to about 250 security contractors who worked for Blackwater in Iraq at the time of the incident, Iraqi Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani said.
Some of the guards now work for other security firms in Iraq, while others work for a Blackwater subsidiary, al-Bolani said.
He said all “concerned parties” were notified of the order three days ago and now have four days left before they must leave. He did not name the companies.
Blackwater security contractors were protecting US diplomats when the guards opened fire in Nisoor Square, a busy Baghdad intersection, on Sept. 16, 2007. Seventeen people were killed, including women and children, in a shooting that inflamed anti-US sentiment in Iraq.
“We want to turn the page,” al-Bolani said. “It was a painful experience, and we would like to go forward.”
Backlash from the Blackwater shooting has been felt hardest by private security contractors, who typically provide protection for diplomats, journalists and aid workers. Iraqi security forces have routinely stopped security details at checkpoints to conduct searches and question guards.
Security guards will be required within the next 10 days to register their weapons with the Ministry of the Interior, al-Bolani said.
Failure to do so could result in arrest, he said.
Based in Moyock, North Carolina, Blackwater is now known as Xe Services, a name change that happened after six of the security firm’s guards were charged in the Nisoor Square shooting. At the time, Blackwater was the largest of the US State Department’s three security contractors working in Iraq.
Xe Services said the company had no employees currently in Iraq, including with its subsidiary, Presidential Airways.
“Xe does not have one, single person in Iraq,” said Xe spokeswoman Stacy DeLuke.
The US embassy in Baghdad declined comment.
The Blackwater guards involved in the incident said they were ambushed, but US prosecutors and many Iraqis said they let loose an unprovoked attack on civilians using machine guns and grenades.
One of the accused guards pleaded guilty in the case, but a federal judge in Washington threw out charges against the other five in December, ruling that the US Justice Department for mishandling the evidence.
The legal ruling infuriated Iraqis and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki vowed to seek punishment for the guards.
Last month, US Vice President Joe Biden flew to Baghdad to assure Iraqis the US administration to appeal the case and bring the guards back to trial.
The shooting further strained relations between the US and Iraq, leading the parliament in Baghdad to seek new laws that would clear the way for foreign contractors to be prosecuted in Iraqi courts. The US government rejected those demands in the Blackwater case.
In January last year, the State Department informed Blackwater that it would not renew its contracts to provide security for US diplomats in Iraq because of the Iraqi government’s refusal to grant it an operating license.
But last September, the State Department said it temporarily extended a contract with Blackwater subsidiary Presidential Airways to provide air support for US diplomats. It has since ended its contracts with Xe, and DynCorp International took over air services protection for US diplomats on Jan. 3.
The State Department said that was its last contract with Xe or its subsidiaries in Iraq.
The Justice Department is now investigating whether Blackwater tried to bribe Iraqi officials with US$1 million to allow the company to keep working there after the Baghdad shooting, US officials close to the probe said.
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