12 December 2009, Washington

Private security guards from blackwater worldwide participated in some of the CIA’s most sensitive activities- clandestine raids with agency officers against suspected of being insurgent in Iraq and Afghanistan and the transporting of detainees, according to former company employee and intelligent officer.

The raids against suspects occurred almost nightly basis during the height of the Iraqi insurgency between 2004 and 06, with blackwater personal playing  central roles in what company insider say “snatch and grab” operations, the former employees and current and former intelligence said. Several black water guards said that their involvement in the operation became so routine that the lines supposedly dividing the CIA, the military and blackwater become blurred. Instead of simply providing security for CIA officers, they say, blackwater personal at times became partners in missions to capture or kill militants in Iraq and Afghanistan, a practice that raises questions about the use of guns for hire on the battlefield.

Separately, former black water employees said they helped provide security on some CIA flights transporting detainees in the years after the 2001 terror attacks. The secret missions illuminate far deeper relationships between the spy agency and the private security company than government officials have previously acknowledged.