Nisour Square

(Newser) - The US is laying the groundwork for what amounts to a mercenary army in Iraq of unprecedented size—but the State Department is withholding information about it from a top watchdog, Wired reports. “Our audit of the program is making no progress,” says Stuart Bowen, the special inspector...

(Newser) - Five guards working for the Blackwater security company in Baghdad opened fire without provocation and massacred Iraqi civilians on a busy Baghdad intersection in 2007, according to chilling indictments filed against the men. The guards, protecting a convoy, used automatic weapons and grenade launchers to fire on cars, houses, a...

(Newser) - Fourteen of the 17 Iraqi civilians Blackwater guards killed at a busy Baghdad intersection in September were unjustified shootings, FBI investigators have concluded. Three deaths—including a mother and son in a car—could be considered a valid use of lethal force in response to a perceived threat, the New ...

(Newser) - A man who failed to stop for a traffic policeman and a screaming woman with a baby in her arms were shot dead as they crossed a busy Baghdad intersection guarded by private US security guards, according to a harrowing Iraqi account of the incident Sunday that left eight civilians...