The 2004 Fallujah Blackwater incident occurred on March 31, 2004, when Iraqi insurgents attacked a convoy containing four American contractors from the

private military company A private military company (PMC) or private military and security company (PMSC) is a private company providing armed combat or security services for financial gain. PMCs refer to their personnel as "security contractors" or "private military ...

Blackwater USA Blackwater was an American private military company founded on December 26, 1996 by former Navy SEAL officer Erik Prince. It was renamed Xe Services in 2009 and known as Academi since 2011 after it was acquired by a group of private investors ...

who were conducting a delivery for food caterers

ESS The suffix ''-ess'' (plural ''-esses'') appended to English words makes a female form of the word. ESS or ess may refer to: Education * Ernestown Secondary School, in Odessa, Ontario * European Standard School, in Dhaka, Bangladesh Governmen ...

The ambush

The four armed contractors,

Scott Helvenston Stephen "Scott" Helvenston (June 21, 1965 – March 31, 2004) was a United States Navy SEAL. He was working as a security contractor for Blackwater Security when he was killed in the 31 March 2004 Fallujah ambush within days of arriving in Iraq. ...

, Jerry Zovko, Wesley Batalona, and Mike Teague, were killed and dragged from their vehicles. Their bodies were beaten and burned, with their charred corpses then dragged through the city streets before being hanged over a bridge crossing the

Euphrates River The Euphrates () is the longest and one of the most historically important rivers of Western Asia. Tigris–Euphrates river system, Together with the Tigris, it is one of the two defining rivers of Mesopotamia ( ''the land between the rivers'') ...

Reactions

Photos of the event, showing jubilant Iraqis posing with the charred corpses, were then released to

news agencies A news agency is an organization that gathers news reports and sells them to subscribing news organizations, such as newspapers, magazines and radio and television broadcasters. A news agency may also be referred to as a wire service, newswire, ...

worldwide, which caused a great deal of indignation in the United States. This prompted the announcement of a counter-insurgency campaign in the city.

Response

The ambush led to the

First Battle of Fallujah The First Battle of Fallujah, code-named Operation Vigilant Resolve, was an operation against militants in Fallujah as well as an attempt to apprehend or kill the perpetrators of the killing of four U.S. contractors in March 2004. The chief ca ...

, a U.S.-led operation to retake control of the city. However, the battle was halted mid-way for political reasons, an outcome which commentators have described as either a stalemate or an insurgent victory. Seven months later, in November 2004, a second attempt at capturing the city, the

Second Battle of Fallujah The Second Battle of Fallujah, codenamed Operation al-Fajr ( ar, الفجر, ) and Operation Phantom Fury, was an American-led offensive of the Iraq War that lasted roughly 6 weeks, starting 7th November, 2004. Marking the highest point of the ...

, proved successful. Intelligence reports concluded that Ahmad Hashim Abd al-Isawi was the mastermind behind the attack, and was not captured until a successful

Navy SEAL The United States Navy Sea, Air, and Land (SEAL) Teams, commonly known as Navy SEALs, are the U.S. Navy's primary special operations force and a component of the Naval Special Warfare Command. Among the SEALs' main functions are conducting sma ...

operation in 2009. al-Isawi was held for a time by the United States intelligence community and testified at one of the 2010

courts-martial A court-martial or court martial (plural ''courts-martial'' or ''courts martial'', as "martial" is a postpositive adjective) is a military court or a trial conducted in such a court. A court-martial is empowered to determine the guilt of memb ...

of SEALs he accused of mistreating him while detained at Camp Schwedler. He was subsequently handed over to Iraqi authorities for trial and

executed Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...

hanging Hanging is the suspension of a person by a noose or ligature around the neck.Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. Hanging as method of execution is unknown, as method of suicide from 1325. The ''Oxford English Dictionary'' states that hanging i ...

some time before November 2013.

2005 lawsuit

The families of the victims filed suit (

Helvenston et al. v. Blackwater Security ''Helvenston et al. v. Blackwater Security'' is the lawsuit for wrongful death filed by the families of the four contractors for Blackwater Security (since renamed ''Academi'') killed in the 31 March 2004 Fallujah ambush. The families of the four ...

) against Blackwater USA for wrongful death in January 2005.

References

{{Reflist 2004 murders in Iraq 21st-century mass murder in Iraq 2004 in Iraq Blackwater (company) Occupation of Iraq Fallujah Terrorist incidents in Iraq in 2004 Ambushes March 2004 events in Iraq