MOGADISHU, Somalia — Somalia’s government decided Thursday to cancel an agreement with a private security company linked to the founder of Blackwater Worldwide to train Somali forces to go after pirates and insurgents, a senior official said.
Deputy Security Minister Ibrahim Mohamed Yarow said the Cabinet, meeting in private, ended the agreement with Saracen International in a decision he said is “irrevocable.”
The Associated Press reported last week that Erik Prince, whose former company Blackwater Worldwide became synonymous with the use of private U.S. security forces running amok in Iraq and Afghanistan, had quietly taken on a new role in the project to train troops in lawless Somalia. Blackwater guards were charged with killing 14 civilians in 2007 in the Iraqi capital.
Yarow said his government, which controls only part of Mogadishu in a country that has seen mostly anarchy for two decades, wanted assistance, but only from companies with distinguished records.
“The Cabinet has today overwhelmingly voted against Saracen International,” Yarrow said.
Lafras Luitingh, the chief operating officer of Beirut-registered Saracen, did not immediately return phone calls or text messages seeking comment.
Luitingh had told AP that his company signed a contract with the Somali government in March. He declined to say then whether Prince was involved in the project and said Prince was not part of Saracen. But a person familiar with the project and an intelligence report seen by AP said Prince was involved in the multimillion-dollar program financed by several Arab countries.
It aimed to mobilize 2,000 Somali recruits to fight Somali pirates who are terrorizing mariners sailing off the African coast. The force also was to go after a warlord linked to Islamist insurgents, one official said.
Prince, now based in the United Arab Emirates, is no longer with Blackwater, which is now known as Xe Services. He has stoutly defended the company, telling Vanity Fair magazine that “when it became politically expedient to do so, someone threw me under the bus.”
