Washington: US intelligence agency CIA outsourced to private security contractors the job of eliminating top-level Al-Qaida members in 2004, as part of a secret programme, media reports said on Thursday.
Blackwater USA, the security firm whose operations in Iraq came under intense scrutiny, was given the operational responsibility for targeting top Al-Qaida leaders, 'The New York Times' and 'The Washington Post' said quoting unnamed government sources.
The North Carolina Company was awarded millions of dollars for training and weaponry, but the programme was canceled before it was operationalised, two officials familiar with the secret project said.
"Outsourcing gave the agency more protection in case something went wrong," a retired intelligence officer intimately familiar with the assassination programme, was quoted as saying by 'The Washington Post'.
The secret programme was launched in 2001 as a CIA-led effort to kill or capture top Al-Qaida leaders using the agency's paramilitary forces. However, in 2004, CIA decided to revive it under a different code name, using outside contractors, officials told 'The Washington Post'.
"It is unclear whether the CIA had planned to use the contractors to actually capture or kill Qaeda operatives, or just to help with training and surveillance in the program," reported 'The New York Times'.