A/HRC/7/7 page 12 United States security contractors, 7,000 to 10,000 expatriates such as Australians, British, Canadians and South Africans, 15,000 to 20,000 third-country nationals from countries such as Bulgaria, Colombia, Chile, El Salvador, Fiji, Honduras, Nepal, Peru, the Philippines, Romania, Russian Federation, Ukraine and others, as well as 25,000 to 30,000 Iraqi host-country nationals.27 According to a United States Government Accountability Office report there would be more than 100,000 contractors of which 48,000 working as private soldiers. The “human insecurity” in Iraq presents a threat to the international security.28 32. The Working Group has received reliable information indicating the existence in Afghanistan of some 2,000 to 3,000 Afghans fulfilling military functions in assistance of United States military forces pursuit of terrorists since 2001.29 In addition, the Working Group received estimations of some 4,000 to 6,000 expatriates from the United States of America, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, some 1,500 to 2,000 third country nationals from Nepal, Fiji, Singapore, the Philippines and Nigeria, and some 15,000 to 20,000 Afghan nationals performing private security functions in Afghanistan.30 PMSCs in Afghanistan are using the three hierarchical model, as in Iraq. PMSCs in Afghanistan might have played a significant role in alienating the population against “foreigners”.31 There appears to remain developments towards a national regulation of the industry in Afghanistan, while in the meanwhile there is limited information available to the national authorities or coalition forces concerning the figures of PMSCs, their employees, office locations and areas of operations, weapons, ammunitions and vehicles. 33. A number of the contracts for Afghanistan and Iraq outsourced by United States government departments to PMSCs are in their turn subcontracted to other companies registered in the United States or abroad. Many of them are private employment agencies (and some of them “ghost” companies, which may have never been legally registered) entrusted with the 27 Robert Y. Pelton, supra (p. 213). As of March 2005, there were over 20,000 foreign private military contractors in Iraq, P.W. Singer, “Outsourcing War”, Foreign Affairs, March 2005. 28 Every month another 30,000 to 50,000 Iraqis flee their homes. Out of a population of 27 million, nearly 2 million Iraqis have been internally displaced and another 2 million are refugees in the Middle East, mostly in Jordan, Syrian Arab Republic, Turkey, Lebanon and Egypt: (Los Angeles Times, editorial, 20 May 2007). It is the greatest mass exodus of people ever in the Middle East and dwarfs anything seen in Europe since the Second World War. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18097.htm. UNHCR figures: 2.2 million refugees and 750,000 IDPs. 29 Antonio Giustozzi, “The privatization of war and security in Afghanistan: future or dead end?”, Economics of Peace and Security Journal, vol. 2 (1): 30-34, p. 31. 30 Swisspeace, “The Impact of Private Military and Security Companies on the Local Population in Post-Conflict Countries. A Comparative Study for Afghanistan and Angola”, Bern, 2007 (draft and forthcoming report, on hold with the authors). 31 A. Giustozzi, supra.