Blackwater Founder Builds Secret UAE Army

Erik Prince has reinvented himself again. The crown prince of Abu Dhabi has hired the billionaire founder of Blackwater Worldwide to build an 800-member mercenary army made up of foreign troops for the United Arab Emirates, the New York Times exclusively revealed Sunday. The paper got its hands on some documents that show how “the oil-soaked sheikdom” gave Prince’s company $529 million for special domestic and international operations, including defending skyscrapers and oil pipelines from terrorist attacks. It also tasks the mercenaries with squashing internal revolt. Although the contract was signed long before the Arab world was swept up by democracy protests, it could still mean that if unrest were to break out in the U.A.E., Prince’s soldiers would be in charge of suppressing them. Most of the mercenaries he hired have been from Latin America since Prince’s number one rule was that no Muslims should be hired because they couldn’t be trusted to kill fellow Muslims.

Prince, who relocated to the U.A.E. after he faced mounting legal trouble in the United States,  hopes that this is just the beginning for his new company, Reflex Responses. According to former employees, Prince warns to use the U.A.E. as a base to train troops for other governments that don’t feel they can trust their own soldiers. The Times notes it isn’t clear whether the program is sanctioned by the U.S. government considering that federal law requires American citizens to get permission from the State Department to train foreign troops. In late 2009, Prince talked to Vanity Fair for a much-discussed article that CIA officials were quick to say was filled with exaggerations. Now he’s well aware that his involvement with anything will immediately raise suspicion so he “has masked his involvement with the mercenary battalion,” notes the NYT. Company insiders often referred to him by the code name “Kingfish.”