Kristina Miller

Tim Kennedy's Congo ambush is a bigger story than one firefight. On September 17, a team from Vectus Global, the company linked to Blackwater founder Erik Prince, was ambushed while traveling between locations in South Kivu, eastern Congo. Reuters reports about 20 people were killed or wounded, including at least seven Congolese and Justin Conaglen, a former New Zealand SAS lance corporal who left the military in August. Tim Kennedy, a U.S. Army Special Forces soldier and former UFC fighter, was shot three times in the leg. A second foreign contractor was also wounded. The team was reportedly a three-man element accompanying Congolese soldiers. The wounded waited hours for evacuation, and Prince's officials were reportedly still searching for aircraft after the shooting started. Kennedy was taken to Burundi, then Johannesburg, then Walter Reed. The New York Times reports seven Colombian contractors working for Prince died in a separate battle earlier that month. The contract was signed in December 2024 and runs five years, through Congo's finance ministry. It was pitched as a mining-revenue project with a "mining police." A UN Group of Experts later found a covert military side, including advice to Congo's army, aircraft and the recruitment of former foreign troops. By February, Vectus said Kinshasa had asked it to help plan the retaking of Uvira. Because the deal runs through civilian ministries, UN experts found no public decree explicitly authorizing a combat role. Nobody has officially identified the attackers. Three sources point toward Rwandan forces backing M23, and one says they may have tracked a Vectus drone back to the team. Rwanda denies backing M23. Claims of a Russian role are unsupported. As recently as 2025, Kennedy was a part-time Maryland National Guard soldier. His status when he took the job, and how a wounded contractor ended up at Walter Reed, haven't been explained. That doesn't imply misconduct. New Zealand has opened an investigation into Conaglen's death. Neither Kennedy nor Vectus has commented. All of this is reported from sources and not officially confirmed.