CIA bomber was a triple agent

The suicide bomber who killed seven CIA operatives in Afghanistan last week was a Jordanian informant who lured intelligence officers into a trap by promising new information about Al Qaeda’s top leadership, former US government officials said.

The suicide bomber who killed seven CIA operatives in Afghanistan last week was a Jordanian informant who lured intelligence officers into a trap by promising new information about Al Qaeda’s top leadership, former US government officials said.

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The attacker, a physician-turned-mole, had been recruited to infiltrate Al Qaeda’s senior circles and had gained the trust of his CIA and Jordanian handlers with a stream of useful intelligence leads, according to two former senior officials briefed on the agency’s internal investigation.

His track record as an informant allowed him to enter a key CIA post without a thorough search, the sources said.

The bomber, identified as Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, was standing just outside an agency building on the base on Wednesday when he exploded a bomb hidden under his clothes, killing the seven Americans along with a Jordanian officer who had been assigned to work with him.

Six CIA operatives were wounded.

The agency has declined to publicly identify the victims, a mix of career officers and contractors with backgrounds ranging from law enforcement to military Special Forces.

Instead, the new evidence points to a carefully planned act of deception by a trusted operative from a country closely allied with the United States in the fight against Al Qaeda.

US and Jordanian officials had come to regard Balawi as trustworthy, former officials said, despite a history of support for Islamic extremism a view that he appeared to support in an interview with an Al Qaeda affiliated publication as recently as this past fall.

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