The suicide bomber who killed eight people inside a CIA base in Afghanistan was a Jordanian-born terrorist working as a double agent, sources said.
The man had been invited to the base because he claimed to have information targeting Osama bin Laden’s second-in-command, a former senior US intelligence source and a foreign government official said.
The bombing killed seven CIA employees - four officers and three contracted security guards - and a Jordanian intelligence officer, a US intelligence source said.
The ex-senior intelligence source and the foreign official said the bomber was Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a 36-year-old doctor from Zarqa, Jordan, whohad been recruited by Jordanian intelligence.
A Jordanian government official said the government had not verified whether the bomber was Jordanian.
Zarqa is the home town of the late al-Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. NBC News first reported the bomber’s identity.
Al-Balawi was arrested more than a year ago by Jordanian intelligence and was thought to have been persuaded to support US and Jordanian efforts against al-Qaeda, according to the NBC report.
He was invited to Camp Chapman, a tightly-secured CIA forward base in Khost province on the fractious Afghan-Pakistan frontier, because he was offering urgent information to track down al-Zawahri, Bin Laden’s right-hand man.
The CIA declined to comment on the report.
Hajj Yacoub, a self-proclaimed spokesman for the Taliban in Pakistan, identified the bomber on Muslim militant websites as Hammam Khalil Mohammed, also known as Abu-Dujana al-Khurasani. There was no independent confirmation of Yacoub’s statement.
Yacoub said the Jordanian intelligence officer who was killed, Ali bin Zaid, was helping the CIA recruit agents to spy on al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Bin Zaid allegedly recruited the suicide bomber.
Jordan’s state news agency Petra identified bin Zaid as an army officer on a humanitarian mission in Afghanistan. It said he was killed last week “as a martyr while performing the sacred duty of the Jordanian forces in Afghanistan”. It did not provide other details.
Bin Zaid is known to be a relative of Jordan’s King Abdullah II. He held the title of sharif, or nobleman, which was bestowed upon him by the Jordanian monarch. King Abdullah and other members of the royal family received bin Zaid’s body, which was repatriated on Saturday in a private ceremony. His wake was held in the Royal Palace.
Jordan is known to have acted as a proxy jailer for the CIA in 2004, when Jordanian intelligence officers interrogated several al-Qaeda militants who were flew in on rendition flights from Guantanamo Bay.
Al-Balawi was not searched for bombs when he got on to Camp Chapman, according to both former officials and a current intelligence official. He detonated the explosive shortly after his debriefing began, according to one former intelligence official. In addition to the eight dead, there were at least six wounded, the CIA said.
The ex-senior intelligence official said one of the big unanswered questions was why so many people were present for the debriefing - the interview of the source - when the explosive was detonated.
Other former CIA officers said that in most cases only one or two agency officers would typically meet a possible informant along with an interpreter, to limit the danger and the possible exposure of the identities of both officers and informants.
AP