Iraq Coalition Casualty Statistics/Private Contractors

April 13 2004: "The Star" Baghdad - At least 80 foreign mercenaries - security guards recruited from the United States, Europe and South Africa and working for American companies - have been killed in the past eight days in Iraq.

At least 18,000 mercenaries, many of them tasked to protect US troops and personnel, are now believed to be in Iraq, some of them earning $1,000 (about R6 300) a day. But their companies rarely acknowledge their losses unless - like the four American murdered and mutilated in Fallujah three weeks ago - their deaths are already public knowledge.