{"id":14595,"date":"2012-04-02T12:47:17","date_gmt":"2012-04-02T20:47:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/?p=14595"},"modified":"2012-04-02T12:47:17","modified_gmt":"2012-04-02T20:47:17","slug":"stratfor-emails-pentagon-hired-mercenaries-intervening-in-syria-since-december","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/2012\/04\/02\/stratfor-emails-pentagon-hired-mercenaries-intervening-in-syria-since-december\/","title":{"rendered":"Stratfor Emails: Pentagon-Hired Mercenaries Intervening in Syria Since December"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/#!\/jeremyscahill\/status\/186896565317808128\">Via Jeremy Scahill<\/a>, this <a href=\"http:\/\/english.al-akhbar.com\/content\/blackwater-veteran-took-part-gaddafi-killing-asked-us-help-syrian-opposition\">news<\/a>\u00a0from Alakhbar English (Lebanese paper) on the WikiLeaks Stratfor emails:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>US government officials requested that an American private security firm contact Syrian opposition figures in Turkey to see \u201chow they can help in regime change,\u201d the CEO of one of these firms told Stratfor in a company email obtained by WikiLeaks and\u00a0<em>Al-Akhbar<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>James F. Smith, former director of Blackwater, is currently the Chief Executive of SCG International, a private security firm with experience in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. In what appears to be his first email to Stratfor, Smith stated that his \u201cbackground is CIA\u201d and his company is comprised of \u201cformer DOD [Department of Defense], CIA and former law enforcement personnel.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe provide services for those same groups in the form of training, security and information collection,\u201d he explained to Stratfor. (doc-id<a href=\"http:\/\/english.al-akhbar.com\/gi-files\/5441475time-quick-call-757-478-7383-libyan-intel\">5441475<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>In a 13 December 2011 email to Stratfor\u2019s VP for counter-terrorism Fred Burton, which Burton shared with Stratfor\u2019s briefers, Smith claimed that \u201c[he] and Walid Phares were getting air cover from Congresswoman [Sue] Myrick to engage Syrian opposition in Turkey (non-MB and non-Qatari) on a fact finding mission for Congress.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>James Smith <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jeremyscahill\/status\/186898022448381953\">told Scahill<\/a> &#8220;he&#8217;s been operating in both Syria &amp; Libya the past year&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/jeremyscahill\/status\/186898607079825409\">but that<\/a> &#8220;Stratfor&#8217;s internal description of his work was &#8216;inaccurate.'&#8221; The December date of the emails coincides with <a href=\"http:\/\/news.antiwar.com\/2012\/03\/07\/stratfor-emails-covert-special-ops-inside-syria-since-december\/\">previous Stratfor revelations about covert operations inside Syria<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Via Jeremy Scahill, this news\u00a0from Alakhbar English (Lebanese paper) on the WikiLeaks Stratfor emails: US government officials requested that an American private security firm contact Syrian opposition figures in Turkey to see \u201chow they can help in regime change,\u201d the CEO of one of these firms told Stratfor in a company email obtained by WikiLeaks [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":86,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-14595","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"meta_box":{"disable_donate_message":"","custom_donate_message":"","subtitle":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/86"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14595"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14596,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14595\/revisions\/14596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14595"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.antiwar.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=14595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}