A growing number of private security and military companies are operating domestically and internationally without effective oversight or accountability, the United Nations working group on the use of mercenaries warned...Presenting its report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, the working group said that private security companies in such conflict-wracked countries as Iraq, Colombia and Afghanistan are recruiting former policemen and members of the military from developing countries as “security guards” in their operations. Once there, those guards in fact become “militarily armed private soldiers,”...who are often responsible for serious human rights abuses, the working group stated. War-torn States also frequently lack the capacity to control and regulate the private companies...