{"id":708229,"date":"2026-10-10T00:46:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T04:46:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/goldtadise.com\/?p=708229"},"modified":"2026-10-10T00:47:46","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T04:47:46","slug":"blackwater-bloodied-erik-princes-congo-force-ambushed-ex-ufc-star-tim-kennedy-shot-in-the-fight-for-the-worlds-cobalt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/goldtadise.com\/?p=708229","title":{"rendered":"Blackwater Bloodied: Erik Prince’s Congo Force Ambushed, Ex-UFC Star Tim Kennedy Shot In The Fight For The World’s Cobalt"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Trump ally’s private army is guarding the minerals America just signed a deal for, under a peace accord America brokered, without an American contract<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

When Erik Prince signed on with Kinshasa last year, the brief was mostly about spreadsheets: help Congo’s finance ministry actually collect taxes on its minerals. But on September 17, it turned into a firefight.<\/h4>\n

According to a Reuters exclusive published Friday, a team working for Prince’s Vectus Global was ambushed in South Kivu in eastern Congo, leaving roughly 20 people killed and wounded, among them at least seven Congolese and a former New Zealand special forces soldier. The wounded include Tim Kennedy, the retired Green Beret, ex-UFC fighter and podcaster with millions of social media followers (and a fight r\u00e9sum\u00e9 in a sport the president is rather fond of, as Reuters helpfully notes), who took three gunshot wounds to the leg and is recovering at Walter Reed.<\/p>\n

Per Reuters, which said it spoke to at least 10 people with direct knowledge of the attack or briefed on it, the Vectus team was moving between locations when it was hit. Some highlights:<\/p>\n