A Jordanian who blew himself up in Afghanistan, killing seven CIA agents and his Jordanian handler, said in a video broadcast on Saturday the act he was planning was for revenge.
“We tell our emir Baitullah Mehsud we will never forget his blood. It is up to us to avenge him in and outside America,” Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi said about a Taliban leader killed in a US attack in August.
“This is a message to the enemies of the (Muslim) nation —the CIA and Jordanian intelligence services,” said the bearded man in military uniform, identified by Al-Jazeera television as Balawi.
A relative later confirmed to AFP in Jordan that the man shown in the video was indeed Balawi — a Jordanian of Palestinian origin who moved with his family to Jordan after Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait.
In the video Balawi is shown holding a weapon and sitting near another individual wearing a headscarf (identified by monitoring group IntelCenter as head of the Pakistan Taliban Hakimullah Mehsud) with a banner with Koranic verse in the background.
Balawi blew himself up at a US military base in Khost, near the Pakistani border on December 30, killing seven CIA agents and his Jordanian handler, a top intelligence officer and member of the royal family. Jihadist websites have identified Balawi as a double agent who duped Western intelligence services for months.
{{/usCountry}}Balawi blew himself up at a US military base in Khost, near the Pakistani border on December 30, killing seven CIA agents and his Jordanian handler, a top intelligence officer and member of the royal family. Jihadist websites have identified Balawi as a double agent who duped Western intelligence services for months.
{{/usCountry}}