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Blackwater copter rescues Polish ambassador By KIM CURTIS The Associated Press BAGHDAD — A daring ambush of bombs and gunfire left Poland's ambassador pinned down in a burning vehicle today before being pulled to safety and airlifted in a rescue mission by the embattled security firm Blackwater USA.

Attackers ambushed and killed two American contractors working for Blackwater Security Consulting south of the Iraqi capital, the US Embassy and security officials said today. Embassy spokesman Bob Callahan said the attack occurred yesterday on the main road to Hillah, south of Baghdad. He did not say exactly where. “I can confirm that two American employees of Blackwater Security were killed early yesterday afternoon on the road to Hillah when an IED exploded next to their vehicle, Callahan said. An IED is a military acronym for an improvised explosive devise, or homemade bomb used frequently by insurgents to attack...

RALEIGH, N.C. — Families of four slain security contractors whose bodies were burned and dragged through the streets of Fallujah, Iraq, have sued the workers' former company, Blackwater Security Consulting of Moyock. The families contend that the company, with headquarters just over the Virginia line at Chesapeake, cut corners that led to the men's deaths last year. The lawsuit, filed today, seeks unspecified damages. The workers were sent into Fallujah without proper equipment and personnel to defend the supply convoy they were guarding, according to the civil lawsuit. "The fact that these four Americans found themselves located in the high-risk,...

A month ago, Blackwater USA founder Erik D. Prince enjoyed a surprising level of anonymity. Not many people knew just how big his Moyock, N.C.-based company was. Few knew how prevalent private security firms were in Iraq. Even fewer knew that the sandy-haired , blue-eyed 34-year-old hailed from one of the wealthiest and best-connected families in Michigan. And Prince liked it that way. All that changed on March 31, when the grisly images of four charred bodies of Blackwater employees flashed across television screens around the world. Events of that day thrust Prince and Blackwater into the spotlight – where...

At first, their gruesome deaths seemed the work of yet another random ambush in Iraq, this one made unforgettable by images of incensed Iraqis celebrating the sight of charred corpses swinging from a bridge over the Euphrates River. But now it appears that the four private security contractors killed, burned and mutilated in Falluja last week were in fact lured into a carefully planned ambush by men they believed to be friendly members of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, according to Patrick Toohey, a senior executive at the security firm, Blackwater USA. The Iraqi men, Mr. Toohey said, promised the...

BAGHDAD (AFP) - The remains of four American security contractors ambushed in Iraq (news - web sites) were recovered as US officials vowed to exact vengeance for their gruesome murder. US Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, deputy head of coalition operations, said the remains were handed over to US forces Thursday. The four, employees of the private US firm Blackwater Security Consulting of North Carolina, were killed Wednesday in an ambush and their vehicles set ablaze in Fallujah, 50 kilometers (30 miles) west of Baghdad. Two of the charred bodies were then dismembered and publicly paraded as a gleeful mob cheered...