The US mercenary firm overseeing a controversial Gaza aid programme is the creation of a bespectacled Chicago private equity baron and a CIA spy with old ties to a Donald Trump ally who participated in one of the Middle East’s nastiest diplomatic rifts.
The story of Safe Reach Solutions (SRS) exemplifies the shadowy revolving door between old spies and Middle Eastern states, one that is increasingly being monetized by American investors flush with cash.
The spies running SRS also have old links to an intelligence company owned by a wealthy patron of pro-Israeli groups.
The intelligence firm, Circinus, is little known today but is unmistakable among diplomats and officials who remember the feud between Qatar and its Gulf neighbours during the first Trump administration.
Since Israel went to war on Gaza, SRS has sent Arabic-speaking mercenaries to oversee aid distributed by the controversial US- and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
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The GHF has come under intense scrutiny by human rights experts and aid groups.
Palestinian health officials say hundreds of civilians have been killed trying to obtain food from GHF distribution sites in the last month. The United Nations has called the GHF’s hubs “death traps”. Last week, 15 human rights and legal organisations said the GHF may be complicit in international crimes.
This week, contractors guarding aid sites in Gaza told the BBC and AP on condition of anonymity that the live ammunition was being used on Palestinians seeking food.
In response, the GHF said its team was composed of seasoned humanitarian, logistics and security professionals and that people with a “vested interest” were trying to make the aid organisation fail. A spokesperson for SRS told the AP that there hadn’t been any serious injuries at their sites.
SRS’s creation mirrors that of dozens of private military firms that mushroomed after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, when the Middle East was awash with money for mercenaries. There are many layers to this lucrative world.
For two decades, former soldiers deployed to war zones like Yemen, Libya and Afghanistan with firms that won big US or foreign government contracts.
In some cases, these foot soldiers could earn $1,000 a day during deployments. In the social media age, their jobs are losing some of their shadowiness. SRS went on a LinkedIn recruiting spree earlier this year before deploying to Gaza, MEE revealed.
A level up are the former intelligence officers-cum-diplomats turned consultants who run the organisations. They oversee the ground troops and do the wheeling and dealing in Middle East capitals.
SRS is run by one with an enviable pedigree: Phil Reilly.
Reilly is a former CIA officer who trained Contra fighters in Nicaragua, deployed to Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks, and served as the CIA’s deputy station chief in Baghdad.
He became a household name among Middle Eastern defence chiefs, serving as one of the key officials linking the CIA and the Department of Defence during the early days of the US’s drone programme.
“The drone programme made Phil a famous guy in the region’s right circles,” one former CIA official told MEE.
Ghosts of Trump’s past: Circinus
Reilly himself was no stranger to bouncing around defence and intelligence companies hawking their services across the Middle East.
He was also bound to be known among allies of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his previous work as a director at Circinus, sources told MEE.
Reilly served on the firm’s board. He joined in 2016, shortly after Circinus was acquired by Elliot Broidy, a one-time Trump donor and hawkish Jewish American supporter of Israel, according to public records.
During the first Trump administration, Broidy’s Circinus was awarded contracts worth more than $200m to do defence work for the United Arab Emirates, according to The New York Times.
Broidy’s firm was doing work for the tiny Gulf state during a time of unprecedented tensions with neighbouring Qatar.
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In 2017, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates announced a blockade on Qatar, accusing it of supporting political Islamists who they said were a threat to their rule.
The Times reported that Broidy lobbied the Trump administration to take a hard line on Qatar. Broidy later sued the government of Qatar over an alleged hack of his records.
Broidy later pleaded guilty in 2020 to conspiring to violate foreign lobbying laws on behalf of Chinese and Malaysian interests. He was pardoned by Trump in January 2021.
MEE repeatedly attempted to contact Broidy for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
Reilly is not the only person in SRS linked to Circinus. MEE revealed last month Israeli filings that reveal SRS is supported by a slew of seasoned US government contractors.
Charles Africano, who is listed as an officer in the company, was also listed as a point of contact for Circinus until the page was taken down for maintenance after MEE’s story was published last month.
Broidy has re-emerged as a vocal supporter of Israel since its war on Gaza began in October 2023.
He has rebranded his company, Circinus Worldwide. In an interview published on Medium in March 2025, he said the company was active in providing “services to the US government and in creating open source intelligence centers for US allies in the Middle East”.
‘Like James Bond’
What makes SRS unique is that it includes a new layer to the military contracting world: American private equity firms.
Private equity firms proliferated in the era of low interest rates after the 2008 financial crisis. They raise money from wealthy families or institutional investors such as pension funds and purchase private companies with the goal of increasing their value through a combination of debt financing, mergers or cost-cutting. The end goal is to flip the companies at a profit.
Private equity firms have invested in everything from HVAC companies to restaurant chains and tech startups. A growing but niche trend is investing in defence companies. That is what McNally Capital, a Chicago-based private equity firm, has been doing for years.
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The firm was founded in 2008 by Ward McNally, the bespectacled and balding descendant of a family of Irish immigrants who made their money picking out far-flung spots on the map, literally.
The McNally publishing company began printing railroad guides in the booming late 19th-century American West.
By the mid-20th century, it was printing road maps and high school geography books. Over the last 15 years, McNally has parlayed his family’s publishing inheritance into a private equity fortune.
McNally has acquired stale but sturdy and solidly American companies, such as Jewett Automation, the Richmond, Virginia-based maker of automation systems. But it’s the defence and security companies that entice McNally.
“Ward inherited a lot of money and likes to do interesting things with it. He just likes this kind of dark arts, intelligence, James Bond stuff. It excites him,” a colleague of McNally told MEE.
MEE reached out to Ward McNally and McNally Capital for comment but did not receive a response by the time of publication.
‘Replicate’ Iraq
Since 2021, McNally Capital and Nio Advisors, an Illinois-based investment firm, have acquired at least three government contractors, each of which is focused on national security.
In late 2024, McNally invested in Quiet Professionals, a firm specialising in cloud-based, open-source intelligence collection and cybersecurity. It is a lucrative business. The firm recently secured a $64.7m contract with the US Marine Corps.
In 2021, McNally acquired Orbis, a firm providing intelligence and national security advisory services. It also taps a burgeoning market in AI analysis, but Orbis also offers advisory and consulting services. It has a history of work in the Middle East. Mike Morrell, a former deputy director of the CIA, is chairman of the board of directors.
McNally, according to multiple sources who spoke with MEE, thought that Orbis would be the perfect company to send American mercenaries to the Gaza Strip. It was here that McNally met Reilly, a senior vice president at Orbis.
Israel had curtailed the delivery of food, water and medical supplies to the Gaza Strip since it launched its offensive on the enclave after the Hamas-led attack on 7 October 2023.
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The New York Times previously revealed that as early as 2023, Israeli officials and business people close to the government had been trying to come up with a plan to tightly control aid distribution in the enclave.
One hope was to sideline the United Nations Agency for Palestinian Refugees.
“The Israelis especially wanted to replicate what the US did in Iraq post-2003. They thought it was a success because the US did de-Baathification and took control of everything,” a source familiar with the early deliberations told MEE.
“If you are a former Mossad guy, the old CIA station chief of Baghdad is not hard to find,” the former CIA official told MEE.
Reilly started working on a study to outsource aid delivery to private companies and foundations while at Orbis in late 2024. McNally got wind of the plan and was all on board. “He said there were gobs of money to be made,” the associate of McNally told MEE.
But Orbis wanted nothing to do with the project, multiple sources told MEE. In the end, McNally and Reilly created a different company on their own to funnel American mercenaries to the Gaza Strip to guard aid centres.
Last month, Reuters cited a McNally spokesperson saying the company helped “support the establishment” of SRS.
The State Department has approved $30m in funding for GHF, which reportedly projects that it will have a $150m monthly budget once it is up and running, totalling $1.8bn a year.
Meanwhile, Israel’s war on Gaza continues.
The number of Palestinians killed by Israeli attacks, mainly women and children, has soared above 56,000. Last month, in one day alone, at least 66 Palestinians were killed by Israeli fire near US-backed aid distribution points.
