Former US contractor for GHF says team leader not fit to oversee operation: Report

A team leader for a US contractor providing services to the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Fund has been accused of being a member of an Islamophobic organisation, a Zeteo report said on Wednesday.

Johnny “Taz” Mulford is a team leader for UG Solutions and oversees the company's work at "aid distribution sites". UG Solutions has been contracted to provide security at GHF's sites.

Employees of the company have been accused of shooting Palestinian men, women and children seeking aid from four US- and Israel-backed GHF aid sites, where, according to the United Nations, more than 1,000 Palestinian aid seekers have been killed since GHF started operating at the end of May, while thousands have been wounded.

According to two sources that Zeteo spoke to, including former US veteran and whistleblower Anthony Aguilar, Mulford is a member of the Infidels Motorcycle Club, a group that claims to be against militant groups. Recently, Aguilar made headlines when he told the world he saw Israeli forces kill a young boy named Amir and countless others while he was manning a GHF aid distribution point in southern Gaza on 28 May.

According to the group’s website, the club “rejects the radical jihadist movement that threatens liberty and freedom around the world”.

Their mission statement says patriotic club members, who include military members and contractors, will “support the fight against terrorism as, and as patriotic Americans supporting our fighting forces from the homeland”.

They have 15 different branches across the US near military bases and one in Germany. The Colorado Springs branch organised a pig roast “in defiance of the Muslim holiday of Ramadan”, according to a flier they produced comparing Muslim men to paedophiles.

Members have also been observed riding at events alongside outlaw motorcycle clubs that are known for their criminal activity, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Inexperience

Aguilar believes that Mulford does not have enough experience to lead at UG Solutions, which, along with GHF, has repeatedly been in the spotlight due to its inability to deliver adequate aid to starving Palestinians.  

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Mulford’s bio says he served in the US Army for 20 years and joined the US Marine Corps right out of high school. He has served in both Iraq and Afghanistan and was a team leader in the US Army parachute team called the "Golden Knights''.

Aguilar, a Green Beret who said he served with Mulford in the US Army and also at UG Solutions in Gaza before resigning, told Zeteo he did not think Mulford should lead a large project like the GHF contract in Gaza, especially as he had been “disbarred from contracting” while he was in the US Army. 

“I respect anybody's service, anybody that wants to raise their right hand and serve in the army. But if I'm a parachute packer, I don't then go say that I have this exquisite combat arms experience. That's what he promotes, that he's this exquisite veteran of combat arms”.

“This is the man that's in charge of the entire security apparatus for the security element in Gaza, who has no experience to plan at this level, didn't have the experience when he was in the army, doesn't have the experience now.”

Aguilar added that the right people need to be in charge of an "operation of this magnitude".