Slaughtered westerners were security guards

The four westerners “slaughtered like sheep” in Iraq were private security guards hired by a US company that recruits former special forces soldiers, including ex-members of the SAS.

The White House blamed terrorists and remnants of Saddam Hussein’s former regime for the “horrific attacks” on what it described as contractors in Fallujah yesterday.

But it emerged today that the four men worked for Blackwater Security Consulting, a North Carolina company.

The company hires former soldiers from the US and other countries to provide security training and guard services.

In Iraq, the company was hired by the Pentagon to provide security for convoys that delivered food in the Fallujah area.

Former members of the SAS and US special forces are said to be earning up to €7,500 a week as security and body guards in Iraq.

The four killed yesterday were believed to be Americans.

Violence returned today to Fallujah, in the heart of the Sunni Triangle. Insurgents attacked a US military convoy and a Humvee was burned after it was hit by a rocket propelled grenade, witnesses said. It was not clear if there were any casualties.

In Fallujah, Iraqi police manned standard roadside checkpoints, but no U.S. troops could be seen inside the city. Shops and schools were open.

The atmosphere was a sharp contrast from yesterday, when jubilant mobs dragged the burned, mutilated bodies of the four through the streets and strung two of them up from a bridge after rebels ambushed their vehicles.

Some of the bodies also were loaded onto the back of a donkey-pulled wooden cart and paraded through Fallujah’s streets as crowds clapped and whistled. It was not clear where the bodies were today.

Some residents vowed to repel US forces if they raid the city.

“We will not let any foreigner enter Fallujah,” said Sameer Sami, 40. “Yesterday’s attack is proof of how much we hate the Americans.”

Another resident, Ahmed al-Dulaimi, 30, said, “We wish that they would try to enter Fallujah so we’d let hell break lose.”

The abuse of the corpses was similar to the scene more than a decade ago in Somalia, when a mob dragged bodies of US soldiers through the streets of Mogadishu, eventually leading to the American withdrawal from the African nation. The images were broadcast worldwide and became the subject of the book and film Black Hawk Down.

The White House denounced the violence and vowed to stay the course in Iraq.

“It is offensive, it is despicable the way these individuals have been treated,” White House press secretary Scott McClellan said.

State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said the contractors, all men, “were trying to make a difference and to help others.”

Fallujah, about 35 miles west of Baghdad, has been the scene of some of the worst violence on both sides of the conflict since the beginning of the US led occupation a year ago.

Chanting “Fallujah is the graveyard of Americans,” residents cheered after Wednesday’s assault on two four-wheel-drive civilian vehicles left both cars in flames.

Iraqis said insurgents attacked the contractors with small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. After the attack, civilians, none of whom appeared to be armed, gathered to celebrate, dragging the bodies through the street and hanging two of them from the green, iron bridge spanning the Euphrates River.

One body was tied to a car that had a poster in its window of Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the founder of the Palestinian militant group Hamas who recently was assassinated in Gaza City by the Israeli military.

Many of those in the crowd were excited young boys who shouted slogans in front of television cameras.

“The people of Fallujah hung some of the bodies on the old bridge like slaughtered sheep,” said witness Abdul Aziz Mohammed. Some corpses were dismembered, he said.

Officials did not identify the dead or the nature of their work because the next of kin had not yet been notified.