Private security operatives ordered to leave country

BAGHDAD - 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 Interior Minister said yesterday.

The order comes in the wake of an American 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, 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 United States diplomats when the guards opened fire in Nisoor Square, a busy Baghdad intersection, on September 16, 2007. Seventeen people were killed, including women and children, in a shooting that inflamed anti-American 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 Interior, al-Bolani 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 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 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.

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 Justice Department mishandled the evidence.

The legal ruling infuriated Iraqis and Prime Minister Nouri Maliki vowed to seek punishment for the guards.

- AP