chlamor
01-22-2011, 09:36 AM
'Prince of Mercenaries' who wreaked havoc in Iraq turns up in Somalia
Blackwater founder sets up new force to tackle piracy
By Guy Adams in Los Angeles
Saturday, 22 January 2011SHARE PRINTEMAILTEXT SIZE NORMALLARGEEXTRA LARGE
Erik Prince, the American founder of the private security firm Blackwater Worldwide, has cropped up at the centre of a controversial scheme to establish a new mercenary force to crack down on piracy and terrorism in the war-torn East African country of Somalia.
The project, which emerged yesterday when an intelligence report was leaked to media in the United States, requires Mr Prince to help train a private army of 2,000 Somali troops that will be loyal to the country's United Nations-backed government. Several neighbouring states, including the United Arab Emirates, will pay the bills.
Mr Prince is working in Somalia alongside Saracen International, a murky South African firm which is run by a former officer from the Civil Co-operation Bureau, an apartheid-era force notorious for killing opponents of the white minority government.
News of his latest project has alarmed, though hardly surprised, critics of Blackwater. The firm made hundreds of millions of dollars from the "war on terror", but was severely tarnished by a string of incidents in post-invasion Iraq, in which its employees were accused of committing dozens of unlawful killings.
Mr Prince, a 41-year-old former US Navy Seal with links to the Bush administration, subsequently rebranded the company "Xe Services" and sold his stake in it. But he remains entangled in a string of lawsuits pertaining to the alleged recklessness of the firm.
For most of the past year, he has been living in Abu Dhabi, where he has close relations with the government and feels better positioned to dodge lawsuits. In an interview with a men's magazine, he recently declared that the UAE's opaque legal system will make it "harder for the jackals to get my money".
The exact nature of his sudden presence in Somalia remains unclear. The Associated Press said yesterday that the army Mr Prince is training will focus on fighting pirates and Islamic rebels.
The leaked intelligence report which prompted the news agency's story was compiled by the African Union, an organisation of African nations. It claimed that Mr Prince's money had enabled Saracen International to gain the contract to train and run the private militia. But that element of the report was flatly contradicted by a spokesman for the Blackwater founder, who claimed that Mr Prince had "no financial role of any kind in this matter".
In a written statement, the spokesman, Mark Corallo, added: "it is well known that he has long been interested in helping Somalia overcome the scourge of piracy. To that end, he has at times provided advice to many different anti-piracy efforts." He declined to answer any further questions.
Whatever the exact details of Mr Prince's role, his presence in Somalia will inevitably lead to renewed soul-searching about the growing privatisation of warfare. Critics of mercenary organisations, which are often prepared to operate where traditional armies fear to tread, claim they are often trigger-happy and lack proper accountability. In Iraq, Blackwater employees shot dead dozens of civilians; 17 people were killed in one incident alone in Nisour Square, Baghdad.
Criminal charges were eventually brought in the US against five Blackwater employees. However, they were dropped in 2009 after a federal judge ruled that the defendants' rights had been violated during the gathering of evidence. Iraq's Interior Ministry subsequently expelled all contractors who had worked with the firm at the time of the Nisour Square shooting.
Somalia, where the country's UN-backed regime is fighting a civil war against al-Shabaab, a group of Islamic insurgents with links to al-Qa'ida, is, if anything, a more volatile country than post-invasion Iraq.
The government controls only a small portion of the capital, Mogadishu, where it has the support of 8,000 UN troops from Uganda and Burundi. It is training an army to extend its reach, but observers fear that its ranks will be weakened by the arrival of Mr Prince – who will pay his troops a far better wage.
Saracen's shady corporate structure has not inspired confidence in its accountability. In 2002, the UN accused its Ugandan subsidiary of training rebel paramilitaries in the Congo. Recently, the firm has claimed to be registered to addresses in Lebanon, Liberia, Uganda and the UAE, some of which seemed not to exist when reporters tried visiting.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/prince-of-mercenaries-who-wreaked-havoc-in-iraq-turns-up-in-somalia-2191270.html
WHO IS SARACEN INTERNATIONAL? WHAT IS IT DOING IN SOMALIA?
“Saracen” is what the Crusaders used to call the Muslims, back in the day.
“Saracen International” is a trade name shared, coincidentally or not, by a number of private security companies across Africa, Europe, the Middle East and North America. These companies deny or downplay any financial or managerial relationships between them. A few, however, reportedly derive from the infamous (and pioneering) South African mercenary firm, Executive Outcomes.
Yesterday, both The New York Times and the Associated Press carried a truly mind-bending story on Saracen International, based on a “confidential” African Union report that had apparently been leaked to both news organizations.
The report claims that none other than Blackwater founder Erik Prince has been financing a “counter-piracy” mercenary squad in Somalia, through Saracen.
Somalia, a chaotic demi-state, was the scene of an iconic American military defeat 18 years ago, not to mention a one-time home base for Osama Bin Laden.
It appears that Prince, an evangelical American mercenary with longstanding ties to the Pentagon and the CIA, has partnered with a group of equally notorious South African guns-for-hire for a paramilitary mission in an Islamic nation, under a corporate banner harking back to the Crusades. But what does all that mean?
Mercenaries don’t work for free
Is this an American war by proxy? Notably, this Somali “counter-piracy” mission is advised by a former White House lawyer and by a former CIA official. However, it is also bankrolled in large part by someone in the government of Prince’s new home, the United Arab Emirates.
Reading between the lines of yesterday’s news stories, the report connecting Prince and Saracen was most likely leaked by someone who felt, understandably, that the presence of mercenaries in Somalia undermines the African Union effort there, and persists on account of official corruption.
Uganda is supplying troops to the uniformed African Union force in Somalia. And, according to AP reports, Saracen is “associated with” the younger brother of Uganda’s president, Salim Saleh. That curious phrasing suggests a mutually beneficial financial relationship. Other African media sources say Salim Saleh is an “investor” or “major shareholder” in Saracen (Uganda).
Salim Saleh’s apparent conflict of interest highlights the key take-away from this incredibly complex story: The lines that separate government security officials and the leaders of private armies have become so fuzzy that you can never really be sure as to the motivations of any individual player. As mercenary forces become more and more prominent in armed conflicts around the world, the profit motive becomes difficult to separate from other casus belli.
In other words, it’s almost impossible to know the real reasons driving any conflict in which mercenaries play a leading role.
Government connections
The Saracen-in-Somalia story started gaining notice after a Washington Times story revealed the role of a former George W. Bush administration official in coordinating Saracen’s contract with the Somali government.
The former official, Pierre R. Prosper, is pictured here in a 2003 photo from his a former gig as an ambassador for “war crimes issues.”
Prosper and Michael Shanklin, a former CIA officer stationed in Mogadishu, previously told the AP they were being paid “paid by a Muslim nation [they] declined to identify” to advise the Somali government on “legal” and “security” matters. That unnamed “Muslim nation,” it now appears, is the UAE.
Late last year, the Washington Times and the AP reported that Prosper met with United Nations monitors over their concerns that Saracen may have violated a long-running (but ineffectual) arms embargo on Somalia. (Mogadishu, a city that has roughly the population of Houston, Texas, averaged 534 “weapon-related casualties” per month last autumn, according to the UN.)
Prosper told the Times “that so far, no arms were shipped to the training camp, to the best of his knowledge.” He told the AP that “Saracen is doing the military training” in Somalia. Yet the same story quotes Saracen (Uganda) chief executive Bill Pelser as disclaiming the company’s training role in Somalia.
Pelser denied being involved in the training program in Puntland…saying he merely made introductions for another company called Saracen Lebanon.
Sure. Got it.
Lebanese authorities have no record of a company called Saracen. Pelser did not respond to requests for contact information for Saracen Lebanon.
Yesterday’s AP story features quotes from Saracen (Lebanon) executive Lafras Luitingh—evidently a distinct entity from the Ugandan company of the same name that is also led by former employees of Executive Outcomes.
Also, it’s supposed to be completely irrelevant that Saracen (Uganda) goes around “ma[king] introductions” for Saracen (Lebanon).
In the AP story, Luitingh says “the company had sought to keep the project secret to surprise the pirates.” (Because the pirates don’t know they might be attacked?) He “declined to say whether [Blackwater founder Erik] Prince was involved in the project and said [Prince] was not part of Saracen.”
Is your head spinning yet? If not, it will be soon. Keep reading.
Saracen International, Not To Be Confused With Saracen International
The AP turned up
at least three Saracens — the one registered in Lebanon, and two run by Luitingh’s business partner and based in Uganda, where government office employees told the AP the registration papers have disappeared. An AP reporter in Beirut could not find the address Luitingh’s company provided in the Somali contract. Lebanese authorities had no address listed for Saracen in Lebanon and said it is based in the United Arab Emirates.
Saracen (Uganda)’s website says the company has branches in South Africa, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Hong Kong, Angola, Zambia, Sudan and Botswana.
My own research turned up two more “Saracen Internationals,” not counting a Spanish real-estate firm with that name.
One, Saracen International Ltd, is based in Manchester, UK.
The corporate address of record is at the Towers Business Park in Manchester. The website registration, however, returns both that address and another, one shared with a café in the southern suburb of Stockport.
An email to the Yahoo account of the listed website registrant, Sira Yaqub, bounced back undelivered. The woman who answered the phone at the UK Saracen in Manchester office suggested calling back on Monday.
The other Saracen International I found is a limited-liability company based in Phoenix, Arizona.
This Saracen International is registered to William G. Lawrence and Tjaart Andre Van Der Walt, both of Phoenix. Lawrence returned a call placed to the company’s listed phone number.
“I have no relationship to the UK company of the same name. I don’t operate in Southern Africa,” he says of Saracen (Arizona).
Van Der Walt, Lawrence says, is a “friend” who has “never been part of the corporation,” although records show the LLC is registered at Van Der Walt’s home address. Lawrence says Van Der Walt, whose first name is also spelled in public records as “Thaart,” emigrated from South Africa 16 years ago and is now an American citizen.
I asked if Van Der Walt ever worked for Executive Outcomes. Lawrence says he doesn’t know, and hadn’t heard of that company.
He has, however, heard of the other Saracens. “I got a call from Somalia asking them to train their coast guard to fight the piracy threat. Only then I became aware that there was another Saracen International,” Lawrence says.
Doesn’t it seem strange, I suggested, that all these private security companies with an international client base—Lawrence’s company has operations in Jordan and the UAE—seem content to share a business name, and aren’t suing one another for copyright infringement? “I can’t account for that except…[the name] has positive connotations in the Arabic world,” Lawrence says.
Positive because, after all, they fought the Crusaders.
Lawrence says his company sells a Chevrolet Suburban outfitted with a concealed six-barrel gatling gun that can pop out of the hood and fire 50 rounds a second in every direction. The car, called the Raptor, costs upward of $300,000.
The Raptor is not something that you’d ever want to cut off in heavy traffic. You can watch its gunner blow up a hatchback on YouTube.
Is this the next must-have vehicle for Arizona’s soccer moms?
“The people we do business with are national leaders. They are always subject to threats of one kind or another. King Abdullah [of Saudi Arabia] has had four assassination attempts on him,” Lawrence says. “He doesn’t ride in our car…but we’re in his entourage.”
(Unlike the other companies that share its name, Saracen (Arizona) does not have an up-and-running website of its own. However, the marketing video for the Raptor contains a plug for saracen.org. That domain is currently listed as for sale.)
Muddied (Black)waters
Yesterday’s AP story on Prince’s ties to Saracen (Uganda) connects another company to the dubiously funded “anti-piracy” mission there.
Afloat Leasing, which owns two ships that have been working with Saracen, said it was Liberian-registered, but an AP reporter didn’t find it at the address given or in Liberian records.
I found an “Afloat Leasing Ltd” registered in South Africa. Records show this company owns a ship called the Seafarer, which departed Durban, South Africa roughly one month ago and was due to call last week in the UAE, a course that would take it past the pirate-plagued Horn of Africa.
This may or may not be the same “Afloat Leasing” named by the AP.
And as long as we’re in the caveats department, it should be noted that Prince, who recently abandoned his “redneck mansion” for the UAE, has denied, through a spokesperson, having any “financial role of any kind in this matter” with Saracen.
It should also be noted that Prince has ostensibly cut his ties with Blackwater, the company he built from nothing, although he’s tight with the new owners, whoever they are.
Did I say Blackwater? Of course, I meant Xe. Or whatever it is now. It’s hard to keep all these companies straight, sometimes. Odd, isn’t it? Most companies try so hard to come up with a memorable name. But with these companies and their constantly changing, generic-sounding brands—not to mention the roving headquarters and opaque registration—it’s almost as though they’re trying to confuse people. Like they don’t want people to remember who they are, or something.
http://www.warisbusiness.com/features/deal-of-the-month/saracen-international-somalia/
Blackwater founder sets up new force to tackle piracy
By Guy Adams in Los Angeles
Saturday, 22 January 2011SHARE PRINTEMAILTEXT SIZE NORMALLARGEEXTRA LARGE
Erik Prince, the American founder of the private security firm Blackwater Worldwide, has cropped up at the centre of a controversial scheme to establish a new mercenary force to crack down on piracy and terrorism in the war-torn East African country of Somalia.
The project, which emerged yesterday when an intelligence report was leaked to media in the United States, requires Mr Prince to help train a private army of 2,000 Somali troops that will be loyal to the country's United Nations-backed government. Several neighbouring states, including the United Arab Emirates, will pay the bills.
Mr Prince is working in Somalia alongside Saracen International, a murky South African firm which is run by a former officer from the Civil Co-operation Bureau, an apartheid-era force notorious for killing opponents of the white minority government.
News of his latest project has alarmed, though hardly surprised, critics of Blackwater. The firm made hundreds of millions of dollars from the "war on terror", but was severely tarnished by a string of incidents in post-invasion Iraq, in which its employees were accused of committing dozens of unlawful killings.
Mr Prince, a 41-year-old former US Navy Seal with links to the Bush administration, subsequently rebranded the company "Xe Services" and sold his stake in it. But he remains entangled in a string of lawsuits pertaining to the alleged recklessness of the firm.
For most of the past year, he has been living in Abu Dhabi, where he has close relations with the government and feels better positioned to dodge lawsuits. In an interview with a men's magazine, he recently declared that the UAE's opaque legal system will make it "harder for the jackals to get my money".
The exact nature of his sudden presence in Somalia remains unclear. The Associated Press said yesterday that the army Mr Prince is training will focus on fighting pirates and Islamic rebels.
The leaked intelligence report which prompted the news agency's story was compiled by the African Union, an organisation of African nations. It claimed that Mr Prince's money had enabled Saracen International to gain the contract to train and run the private militia. But that element of the report was flatly contradicted by a spokesman for the Blackwater founder, who claimed that Mr Prince had "no financial role of any kind in this matter".
In a written statement, the spokesman, Mark Corallo, added: "it is well known that he has long been interested in helping Somalia overcome the scourge of piracy. To that end, he has at times provided advice to many different anti-piracy efforts." He declined to answer any further questions.
Whatever the exact details of Mr Prince's role, his presence in Somalia will inevitably lead to renewed soul-searching about the growing privatisation of warfare. Critics of mercenary organisations, which are often prepared to operate where traditional armies fear to tread, claim they are often trigger-happy and lack proper accountability. In Iraq, Blackwater employees shot dead dozens of civilians; 17 people were killed in one incident alone in Nisour Square, Baghdad.
Criminal charges were eventually brought in the US against five Blackwater employees. However, they were dropped in 2009 after a federal judge ruled that the defendants' rights had been violated during the gathering of evidence. Iraq's Interior Ministry subsequently expelled all contractors who had worked with the firm at the time of the Nisour Square shooting.
Somalia, where the country's UN-backed regime is fighting a civil war against al-Shabaab, a group of Islamic insurgents with links to al-Qa'ida, is, if anything, a more volatile country than post-invasion Iraq.
The government controls only a small portion of the capital, Mogadishu, where it has the support of 8,000 UN troops from Uganda and Burundi. It is training an army to extend its reach, but observers fear that its ranks will be weakened by the arrival of Mr Prince – who will pay his troops a far better wage.
Saracen's shady corporate structure has not inspired confidence in its accountability. In 2002, the UN accused its Ugandan subsidiary of training rebel paramilitaries in the Congo. Recently, the firm has claimed to be registered to addresses in Lebanon, Liberia, Uganda and the UAE, some of which seemed not to exist when reporters tried visiting.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/prince-of-mercenaries-who-wreaked-havoc-in-iraq-turns-up-in-somalia-2191270.html
WHO IS SARACEN INTERNATIONAL? WHAT IS IT DOING IN SOMALIA?
“Saracen” is what the Crusaders used to call the Muslims, back in the day.
“Saracen International” is a trade name shared, coincidentally or not, by a number of private security companies across Africa, Europe, the Middle East and North America. These companies deny or downplay any financial or managerial relationships between them. A few, however, reportedly derive from the infamous (and pioneering) South African mercenary firm, Executive Outcomes.
Yesterday, both The New York Times and the Associated Press carried a truly mind-bending story on Saracen International, based on a “confidential” African Union report that had apparently been leaked to both news organizations.
The report claims that none other than Blackwater founder Erik Prince has been financing a “counter-piracy” mercenary squad in Somalia, through Saracen.
Somalia, a chaotic demi-state, was the scene of an iconic American military defeat 18 years ago, not to mention a one-time home base for Osama Bin Laden.
It appears that Prince, an evangelical American mercenary with longstanding ties to the Pentagon and the CIA, has partnered with a group of equally notorious South African guns-for-hire for a paramilitary mission in an Islamic nation, under a corporate banner harking back to the Crusades. But what does all that mean?
Mercenaries don’t work for free
Is this an American war by proxy? Notably, this Somali “counter-piracy” mission is advised by a former White House lawyer and by a former CIA official. However, it is also bankrolled in large part by someone in the government of Prince’s new home, the United Arab Emirates.
Reading between the lines of yesterday’s news stories, the report connecting Prince and Saracen was most likely leaked by someone who felt, understandably, that the presence of mercenaries in Somalia undermines the African Union effort there, and persists on account of official corruption.
Uganda is supplying troops to the uniformed African Union force in Somalia. And, according to AP reports, Saracen is “associated with” the younger brother of Uganda’s president, Salim Saleh. That curious phrasing suggests a mutually beneficial financial relationship. Other African media sources say Salim Saleh is an “investor” or “major shareholder” in Saracen (Uganda).
Salim Saleh’s apparent conflict of interest highlights the key take-away from this incredibly complex story: The lines that separate government security officials and the leaders of private armies have become so fuzzy that you can never really be sure as to the motivations of any individual player. As mercenary forces become more and more prominent in armed conflicts around the world, the profit motive becomes difficult to separate from other casus belli.
In other words, it’s almost impossible to know the real reasons driving any conflict in which mercenaries play a leading role.
Government connections
The Saracen-in-Somalia story started gaining notice after a Washington Times story revealed the role of a former George W. Bush administration official in coordinating Saracen’s contract with the Somali government.
The former official, Pierre R. Prosper, is pictured here in a 2003 photo from his a former gig as an ambassador for “war crimes issues.”
Prosper and Michael Shanklin, a former CIA officer stationed in Mogadishu, previously told the AP they were being paid “paid by a Muslim nation [they] declined to identify” to advise the Somali government on “legal” and “security” matters. That unnamed “Muslim nation,” it now appears, is the UAE.
Late last year, the Washington Times and the AP reported that Prosper met with United Nations monitors over their concerns that Saracen may have violated a long-running (but ineffectual) arms embargo on Somalia. (Mogadishu, a city that has roughly the population of Houston, Texas, averaged 534 “weapon-related casualties” per month last autumn, according to the UN.)
Prosper told the Times “that so far, no arms were shipped to the training camp, to the best of his knowledge.” He told the AP that “Saracen is doing the military training” in Somalia. Yet the same story quotes Saracen (Uganda) chief executive Bill Pelser as disclaiming the company’s training role in Somalia.
Pelser denied being involved in the training program in Puntland…saying he merely made introductions for another company called Saracen Lebanon.
Sure. Got it.
Lebanese authorities have no record of a company called Saracen. Pelser did not respond to requests for contact information for Saracen Lebanon.
Yesterday’s AP story features quotes from Saracen (Lebanon) executive Lafras Luitingh—evidently a distinct entity from the Ugandan company of the same name that is also led by former employees of Executive Outcomes.
Also, it’s supposed to be completely irrelevant that Saracen (Uganda) goes around “ma[king] introductions” for Saracen (Lebanon).
In the AP story, Luitingh says “the company had sought to keep the project secret to surprise the pirates.” (Because the pirates don’t know they might be attacked?) He “declined to say whether [Blackwater founder Erik] Prince was involved in the project and said [Prince] was not part of Saracen.”
Is your head spinning yet? If not, it will be soon. Keep reading.
Saracen International, Not To Be Confused With Saracen International
The AP turned up
at least three Saracens — the one registered in Lebanon, and two run by Luitingh’s business partner and based in Uganda, where government office employees told the AP the registration papers have disappeared. An AP reporter in Beirut could not find the address Luitingh’s company provided in the Somali contract. Lebanese authorities had no address listed for Saracen in Lebanon and said it is based in the United Arab Emirates.
Saracen (Uganda)’s website says the company has branches in South Africa, Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Hong Kong, Angola, Zambia, Sudan and Botswana.
My own research turned up two more “Saracen Internationals,” not counting a Spanish real-estate firm with that name.
One, Saracen International Ltd, is based in Manchester, UK.
The corporate address of record is at the Towers Business Park in Manchester. The website registration, however, returns both that address and another, one shared with a café in the southern suburb of Stockport.
An email to the Yahoo account of the listed website registrant, Sira Yaqub, bounced back undelivered. The woman who answered the phone at the UK Saracen in Manchester office suggested calling back on Monday.
The other Saracen International I found is a limited-liability company based in Phoenix, Arizona.
This Saracen International is registered to William G. Lawrence and Tjaart Andre Van Der Walt, both of Phoenix. Lawrence returned a call placed to the company’s listed phone number.
“I have no relationship to the UK company of the same name. I don’t operate in Southern Africa,” he says of Saracen (Arizona).
Van Der Walt, Lawrence says, is a “friend” who has “never been part of the corporation,” although records show the LLC is registered at Van Der Walt’s home address. Lawrence says Van Der Walt, whose first name is also spelled in public records as “Thaart,” emigrated from South Africa 16 years ago and is now an American citizen.
I asked if Van Der Walt ever worked for Executive Outcomes. Lawrence says he doesn’t know, and hadn’t heard of that company.
He has, however, heard of the other Saracens. “I got a call from Somalia asking them to train their coast guard to fight the piracy threat. Only then I became aware that there was another Saracen International,” Lawrence says.
Doesn’t it seem strange, I suggested, that all these private security companies with an international client base—Lawrence’s company has operations in Jordan and the UAE—seem content to share a business name, and aren’t suing one another for copyright infringement? “I can’t account for that except…[the name] has positive connotations in the Arabic world,” Lawrence says.
Positive because, after all, they fought the Crusaders.
Lawrence says his company sells a Chevrolet Suburban outfitted with a concealed six-barrel gatling gun that can pop out of the hood and fire 50 rounds a second in every direction. The car, called the Raptor, costs upward of $300,000.
The Raptor is not something that you’d ever want to cut off in heavy traffic. You can watch its gunner blow up a hatchback on YouTube.
Is this the next must-have vehicle for Arizona’s soccer moms?
“The people we do business with are national leaders. They are always subject to threats of one kind or another. King Abdullah [of Saudi Arabia] has had four assassination attempts on him,” Lawrence says. “He doesn’t ride in our car…but we’re in his entourage.”
(Unlike the other companies that share its name, Saracen (Arizona) does not have an up-and-running website of its own. However, the marketing video for the Raptor contains a plug for saracen.org. That domain is currently listed as for sale.)
Muddied (Black)waters
Yesterday’s AP story on Prince’s ties to Saracen (Uganda) connects another company to the dubiously funded “anti-piracy” mission there.
Afloat Leasing, which owns two ships that have been working with Saracen, said it was Liberian-registered, but an AP reporter didn’t find it at the address given or in Liberian records.
I found an “Afloat Leasing Ltd” registered in South Africa. Records show this company owns a ship called the Seafarer, which departed Durban, South Africa roughly one month ago and was due to call last week in the UAE, a course that would take it past the pirate-plagued Horn of Africa.
This may or may not be the same “Afloat Leasing” named by the AP.
And as long as we’re in the caveats department, it should be noted that Prince, who recently abandoned his “redneck mansion” for the UAE, has denied, through a spokesperson, having any “financial role of any kind in this matter” with Saracen.
It should also be noted that Prince has ostensibly cut his ties with Blackwater, the company he built from nothing, although he’s tight with the new owners, whoever they are.
Did I say Blackwater? Of course, I meant Xe. Or whatever it is now. It’s hard to keep all these companies straight, sometimes. Odd, isn’t it? Most companies try so hard to come up with a memorable name. But with these companies and their constantly changing, generic-sounding brands—not to mention the roving headquarters and opaque registration—it’s almost as though they’re trying to confuse people. Like they don’t want people to remember who they are, or something.
http://www.warisbusiness.com/features/deal-of-the-month/saracen-international-somalia/