More scandal erupts around Blackwater

American law specifically prohibits the use of private soldiers or mercenaries in combat, according to Jonathan Turley, a professor of public interest law at George Washington University.

"The United States Congress has never approved the use of private contractors for combat operations," Turley told ABC News in an interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC World News with Charles Gibson.

CIA officials acknowledge that two private contractors were killed in Afghanistan in 2003 when they and other members of a CIA paramilitary team were in a firefight with Taliban fighters on a remote road.

In another case, in 2006, 12 Blackwater "tactical action operatives" were recruited for a secret raid into Pakistan by the U.S. military's Joint Special Operations Command, according to a military intelligence planner. The target of the planned raid, code-named Vibrant Fury, was a suspected al Qaeda training camp, according to the planner, who said he did not know the outcome of the mission.

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However, Blackwater, renamed Xe Services, denied there was any contract for secret raid. “Blackwater USA was never under contract to participate in covert raids with CIA or Special Operations personnel in Iraq, Afghanistan or anywhere else. Any allegation to the contrary by any news organisation would be false,” Xe Services spokesman Mark Corallo said in an emailed statement. The company changed its name this year.

Blackwater’s ties to the CIA have emerged in recent months, beginning with disclosures that the agency had hired the company as part of a programme to assassinate leaders of Al Qaeda and to assist in the CIA’s Predator drone programme in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

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