Israel, drones and mercenaries: Blackwater founder Erik Prince is in Africa

In life, some things are always true. One such truth is that wherever there is instability, pain and suffering in the world, former Navy SEAL and mercenary kingpin Erik Prince will be there trying to make a profit out of it. Like a fly on an open wound…

The Trump loyalist is now operating in the Democratic Republic of Congo. And he’s got a drone armada and a bunch of Israeli contractors with him. Prince signed a deal with Congo in 2025 to support the government in a conflict with Rwanda-backed rebels.

Haaretz reported on 11 February:

Blackwater founder Erik Prince deployed a private security force to operate drones and help the Democratic Republic of Congo’s army secure the strategic city of Uvira against Rwanda-backed rebels

His entourage includes:

a private security force trained by Israelis to operate drones and help the Democratic Republic of Congo’s army secure the strategic city of Uvira

But Prince, descendant of a line of US industrialists, is a busy man if nothing else…

Erik Prince — real-life Bond villain

Prince made a name in Iraq, where his now-defunct firm Blackwater is famous for the massacring of civilians. The early stages of that unpopular US occupation saw a boom in private military firms being used by the US and others, as well as by foreign oil firms. Trump eventually pardoned those convicted for the killings. Prince raked in millions anyway.

Blackwater was re-branded as Xe in 2009, then Academi in 2011. What hasn’t changed is that Prince has been making money out of war and chaos for decades.

Prince has interests in Ukrainian drones, Israeli occupation and the US dirty war with Venezuela. Prince sought to securitise Europe’s frontier against desperate refugees. He has been described as a real-life Bond villain and a hardcore Trump man from the start:

Erik Prince has always been politically connected to Maga, the Maga movement, and that’s going back to 2015.

He is also reported to be:

 a central figure among a web of other contractors trying to sell Trump advisers on a $25bn deal to privatize the mass deportations of 12 million migrants.

Prince also ran private military contractors to Haiti and is implicated in illegal arms deals in Libya. There doesn’t seem to be an authoritarian regime or shadowy outfit he won’t roll with: the UAE, Ecuador, China, Russia, the CIA… and the list goes on.

Now we know what sort of man this is, back to Congo.

Diamonds in Africa

Kinshasa hired the mercenaries

to help secure and improve tax revenue collection from Congo’s vast mineral reserves.

Sources in the country told the press:

Prince’s contractors operated in coordination with Israeli advisers who were involved in training two Congolese special forces battalions on day and night operations, according to a fifth source briefed on the operation.

They added the Israeli mandate is “training only”:

The AFC/M23 rebels briefly seized the city on the border with Burundi in December in a major blow to ongoing US- and Qatar-backed peace negotiations. They withdrew after Washington threatened to retaliate

And Hareetz said:

The US has offered Congo support brokering an end to the conflict in return for access to the nation’s critical mineral resources.

Trump’s art of the deal at work again…

Now Prince’s mercenaries are on the ground. Neither his nor the Congolese government’s spokespeople offered any comment. Prince is again confirming his role as colonialist grim reaper figure. In truth, he probably relishes that persona. It follows that he and Trump are natural bedfellows. Like the US president, Prince embodies the spirit of American capitalism and its role across the world. The trail of bodies his operations have left behind seems to confirm this.

Featured image via the Canary