Updated

The U.S. Embassy has confirmed that the security firm once known as Blackwater Worldwide has finished its work in Baghdad.

Embassy spokeswoman Susan Ziadeh says the company's task order for Baghdad ends Thursday and a new security provider Triple Canopy is taking over.

State Department officials in Washington have said the company now known as Xe will remain in some areas of southern Iraq into the summer. They also say its aviation service, Presidential Airways, will provide air security for diplomatic convoys into September.

Ziadeh says only that the company's other task orders "will come to an end once they expire, which will be soon."

The company has become a flashpoint for Iraqi anger after contractors killed 17 civilians in Baghdad in 2007.