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 .

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 million of dollars for training and weaponry, but the programme was cancelled 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.

Government officials said that bringing outsiders into a programme with lethal authority raised deep concern about accountability in covert operations, the daily said.

American spy agencies have in recent years outsourced some highly controversial work, including the interrogation of prisoners.

Blackwater company came under heavy criticism for its role in a shootout in Baghdad in 2007 that left 1`7 Iraqi civilians dead.

— The Statesman, August 21, 2009