A/HRC/7/7 page 17 United States (159), United Kingdom (43), South Africa (22), Nepal (19), Fiji (19), Philippines (14), Canada (5), Australia (5), New Zealand (4), but also from Bulgaria, Colombia, Croatia, Honduras, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Peru, Poland, Romania, Sweden and Ukraine.52 Private contractors are increasingly the targets of insurgents. The United States Army Corps of Engineers has registered a substantial increase in the attacks on supply convoys carrying supplies into and around Iraq (14.7 per cent in 2007 compared to 5.5 per cent in 2005 for the same period of time).53 43. However, their exact numbers, precise tasks and the accurate number of casualties remain unknown.54 The figures of 100,000 private contractors working in Iraq on United States contracts, given by the United States Central Command, would include neither subcontractors nor contractors working for other clients.55 The ratio of private contractors in Iraq could be thus almost of one for every single United States military personnel. It should be also pointed out that as a result of the situation and the increasing demand for protection, contractors in Iraq may allocate some 25 per cent of their budget to private security. In the competition among PMSCs by offering the lowest prices to obtain contracts in Iraq, protective measures for their employees would have been neglected. D. Lack of accountability 44. These new emerging non-State entities transcend the power of Governments and are eroding the traditional concept of sovereignty and the monopoly of the use of force. PMSCs the main aim of which is profit-making do not provide a sound basis for long-term stability. Without accountability and oversight, PMSCs have often reinforced the potential for conflict as has been the case in the Balkans,56 Sierra Leone, Liberia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The proliferation of PMSC activities “fuels the ungovernance of political violence and undermines, or makes more difficult the establishment of, the state monopoly on legitimate violence”.57 52 For the period 2003-2007, http://icasualties.org/oif/Civ.aspx. 53 US Congressional Research Services, Report on Private Security Contractors in Iraq, 2007. 54 T. Engelhardt, “The devil’s dictionary of war in Iraq”, The Financial Express, 26 April 2007. 55 M. Caparini, supra. According to the Christian Science Monitor (18 July 2007), there are 180,000 contractors. There would be 630 companies working in Iraq on contract for the United States Government, with personnel from more than 100 countries. Scahill, supra. 56 The Sarajevo Client Guidelines for the Procurement of Private Security Companies identifies best practices for post-conflict situations. See South Eastern and Eastern Europe Clearinghouse for the Control of Small Arms and Light Weapons (SEESAC), http://www.see.sac.org. 57 Anna Leander, supra, p. 8.