Jordanian double-agent killed CIA officers

[sabra]

Source: MSNBC

Officials: Perpetrator of Afghan attack was supposed to infiltrate al-Qaida

The suicide bombing on a CIA base in Afghanistan last week was carried out by a Jordanian doctor who was an al-Qaida double agent, Western intelligence officials told NBC News.

Initial reports said that the attack, which killed seven CIA officers, was carried out by a member of the Afghan National Army.

According to Western intelligence officials, the perpetrator was Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, 36, an al-Qaida sympathizer from the town of Zarqa, which is also the hometown of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant Islamist responsible for several devastating attacks in Iraq.

Al-Balawi was arrested by Jordanian intelligence more than a year ago. However, the Jordanians believed that al-Balawi had been successfully reformed and brought over to the American and Jordanian side, setting him up as an agent and sending him off to Afghanistan and Pakistan to infiltrate al-Qaida.

Read more: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/34687312/ns/world_news-south_and_central_asia/

[Peace Patriot]

1. "...Western intelligence officials told NBC News." Just sayin'. nt

[Renew Deal]

5. Just sayin what?

[Peace Patriot]

6. Do you trust either source? "Western intelligence officials"? Or "NBC News"?

"Western intelligence officials" is very vague. I am skeptical of even named officials, let alone anonymous officials without even an agency named. And "NBC" is a war profiteer conglomerate. I basically upfront don't trust anything they say.

I was just sayin': Be skeptical. Be wary. Ask questions. Peer into the black holes where information should be. Learn to read between the lines. Be alert for possible ill motives, bias, convenient narratives, lies, disinformation, internal wars, backstabbing, big bucks contracts at issue, etc.

It's not as if we haven't been lied to before, and propagandized, time and again, by our government and by corpo-fascist 'news' monopolies.

[Renew Deal]

7. That's what I was trying to figure out.

What the hell are you saying? :evilgrin:

[Peace Patriot]

8. I'm saying I don't believe this story. To me, upfront, it's just one more very probable lie.

Maybe it'll be proven true. Maybe not. It is guilty until proven innocent.

Has it not struck you as odd that CIA deaths in the field are NEVER reported--until these? So, what is going on here? I do not know. But I am naturally, and justifiably, suspicious of "Western intelligence officials," and of NBC in particular but also of any and all corporate 'news' organizations.

What I have seen happening over the last 10 years is a lying, disinformationist narrative, aimed at brainwashing us into being compliant little fleeced taxpayers for humongous military expenses--a narrative written by our war profiteering so-called government in league with the corporate media.

This has led me to ask questions--particularly of this kind of story (military subject), such as: First of all, is this story true at all? Is it a cover story of some kind? Are there any clues in the story that might reveal whether it's really true, whether it's a cover, what it might be covering up? Is someone trying to deflect attention from the Afghan army, or trying to point a finger at Jordan (unfairly) for some reason? The people killed were 'subcontractors'? Is someone trying to deflect attention from their failures (i.e., security failures), by making the bomber a more scary figure? Is the contractor trying to protect the contract? (Aside: Are the "Western intelligence officials" actually the contractor or subcontractor? Is that why NBC is being so coy about the source--not even mentioning an agency?) A biggie: What is this story doing in the 'news'? This is the sort of thing you just don't air in public in the midst of a war. WHY is it being aired? Possibility: Somebody at the CIA doesn't like this whole subcontractor thing, and is trying to expose their ineptness?

I repeat: I DON'T KNOW. But these are the kinds of questions I ask when I read a 'news' story like this. And I put 'news' in inverted commas for a reason, because I don't trust it as news. There is so much money riding on an event like this, that's it's probably impossible to get a straight answer out of anybody. We have a military and a government that lies to us, egregiously and often. We have trillions of dollars worth of "contractors" in the mix, who have their own motives for lying--to us, to the military, to the government. We have an extremely corrupt puppet government in Afghanistan, and they're lying all the time as well. Then we have Pakistani intelligence, and Israeli intelligence, and British intelligence, and Jordanian intelligence, and on and on.

Personally, I think that the "war on terror" is one great big mindboggling cauldron of corruption, from one end of the earth to the other, and I think it's a pretty hopeless task trying to figure out what's really going on, with an individual incident like this--but I DO think we have an obligation to try. It's our money! In theory, it's our government! Its "subcontractor" assassination squads are being deployed in our name! For all I know, they got killed by a rival contractor, and everybody's trying to cover that up. Maybe that's why the story keeps changing.

SOMETIMES, we can put several versions of the story together, maybe parse it for what the various 'news' monopolies print in common, try to get some idea of the source or sources, and maybe with time, or with cracks in the story (I'm thinking of Jessica Lynch), figure out what it was really all about--if any of it was true, if part of it was true, etc.

Anyway, you see how I think. I don't trust the story, upfront. To me, it's just part of the "newsgame"--a highly manipulated game, the point of which is to move large portions of our tax money around the board to various insider "players" and to blind the rest of us to the true nature of the game. In a particular story, its players, its leakers, its attached congressional pet projects, its contractors and subcontractors, its op-ed commenters, its reporters and its facts are all part of the game. And that game has nothing whatever to do with telling us the truth.

[midnight]

2. A reason given for not expanding into Afghanistan was because of the lack

of a recognized govt. and that our troops could not trust those considered to be in charge...

[goforit]

3. I guess the CIA doesn't got what it takes. Cheney/Bush destroyed all know-how.

[awnobles]

4. CIA runs the show

same as ever. Secrecy is the veil, military profiteering and the drug trade are the reasons.

[The abyss]

9. Not another terrorist from “Zarqa”!!

You remember Musab's dad, the guy from Zarqa? "Abu Musab al Zarqawi"

Or in colloquial terms: Fred’s dad – that guy from Brooklyn.

Obviously this must be the uncle.

I think recycle is running rather short these days :)

[Hissyspit]

10. AP Sources: Bomber at CIA Base Was a Double Agent

Source: Associated Press

AP sources: Bomber at CIA base was a double agent

AFP/Getty Images/File – The CIA symbol is shown on the floor of its headquarters in Langley, Virginia. A suicide attack in Afghanistan …
By PAMELA HESS and ADAM GOLDMAN, Associated Press Writers – 31 mins ago

WASHINGTON – The suicide bomber who killed eight people inside a CIA base in Afghanistan was a Jordan-born terrorist double agent who was invited to the base because he claimed to have information targeting Osama bin Laden's second-in-command, a former senior U.S. intelligence official and a foreign government official confirmed Monday.

The bombing killed seven CIA employees — four officers and three contracted security guards — and a Jordanian intelligence officer, Ali bin Zaid, according to a second former U.S. intelligence official. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the incident.

The former senior intelligence official and the foreign official said the bomber was Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a 36-year old doctor from Zarqa, Jordan, who had been recruited by Jordanian intelligence. Zarqa is the hometown of slain al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. NBC News first reported the bomber's identity.

He was arrested more than a year ago by Jordanian intelligence and was thought to have been persuaded to support U.S. and Jordanian efforts against al-Qaida, 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 Ayman al-Zawahri, Osama bin Laden's right-hand man.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_cia_afghan_attack

[HughMoran]

11. That's simply awful

:(

[StarfarerBill]

12. Bomber who killed CIA operatives in Afghanistan was triple agent

Source: Guardian UK

he suicide bomber who killed eight people at a US base in eastern Afghanistan last week was a triple agent brought to the outpost after offering information to catch a leading al-Qaida aide.

The attack at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost province killed seven CIA employees and a Jordanian intelligence officer said to have brought the bomber, a Jordanian doctor, to the spy agency outpost.

US news agencies, citing intelligence sources, identified the attacker as Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi, a 36-year-old doctor from the town of Zarqa, Jordan.

Balawi was arrested by Jordanian intelligence more than a year ago on suspicion of extremist sympathies, then apparently agreed to support the US in its fight against al-Qaida.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/04/afghanistan-cia-bomber-triple-agent

[shadowknows69]

13. I would have given him the 10 if he'd tried for the quadruple agent

But as it stands I can only vote an 8.5. Clearly time to clean house on the clandestine services. When your assets are assassinating you, there's been a disconnect somewhere.

[Javaman]

14. doesn't his third agent status cancel out the first two?

so that would just make him a basic old spy?

personally, I prefer the old double agent with the half twist.

[hmorehead]

15. Only in a parallel universe. Afghanistan is an alternative universe.

[leveymg]

16. This is precisely how 9/11 happened. Several of the hijackers were CIA/Saudi double-agents,

which is why the CIA let them in and allowed them to wander around the US making contacts and taking flight training. Even after the Agency learned the approximate date of the intended hijackings, the Bush-Cheney White House and elements of the CIA and other U.S. intel continued to protect them from nosy FBI field agents. See, www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/7/124813/4868

The CIA let Mr. al-Balawi in the front door without checking him very closely, as well.

The guys doing Counter-Terrorism in Langley and in the field don't seem to learn from their mistakes, in large part because no one will own up to the policy "errors" that started these wars. No accountability, no learning. A sure recipe for more disasters.

[Historic NY]

17. after a while they kinda forget which side they're on.........

[leveymg]

18. Jordanian Double-Agent Behind CIA Attack

Source: Foreign Policy Magazine, from Wash Post report

Jordanian double agent behind CIA attack

The suicide bomber who attacked an outpost in Khost, Afghanistan last week killing seven CIA agents and a Jordanian spy was a Jordanian double agent, recruited by both countries' intelligence services to provide information about al Qaeda's top leadership, according to Western government officials.

The Washington Post reports that Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi was a 36-year-old physician with a history of supporting Jihadist causes and was well known on extremists online message boards. Balawi was arrested by Jordanian authorities in 2007 and recruited as a double agent. Balawi gained the trust of Jordanian authorities and the CIA with a stream of valuable intelligence leaks, which may explain why he was allowed on the base without more thorough screening. He may have been helping the agency track down al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahri, who is believed to be hiding somewhere in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region.

The revelations are somewhat embarrassing for Jordan, which has often tried to keep its counterterrorism cooperation with the United States quiet, fearing domestic backlash. The body of the Jordanian intelligence operative who was assigned as Balawi's handler was flown home for a military funeral over the weekend. The CIA has no publicly revealed the names of those killed in the worst attack against the agency in more than 25 years.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/04/AR2010010402150_pf.html

---

This is precisely how 9/11 happened. Several of the suicide hijackers were CIA/Saudi General Intelligence Directorate (GID) double-agents.

Like the Afghanistan CIA suicide bomber, the Agency let known al-Qaeda terrorists in the front door and allowed them to freely wander around the country making contacts and taking flight training. Even after the Agency learned the intended hijackings and other details about the targets -- and outlined this information for the President in the August 6 PDB -- the Bush-Cheney White House and elements of the CIA and other U.S. intel continued to protect their double-agents from nosy FBI field agents. See, http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/7/124813/4868

The CIA let Mr. al-Balawi in the front door without checking him very closely, as well.

The guys doing Counter-Terrorism in Langley and in the field (most of them hired during the Bush era) don't seem to learn from their mistakes, in large part because no one will own up to the policy "errors" that started America's three current wars. Of course, those responsible for 9/11 were Bush, Cheney and a small circle of top national security decision-makers. No accountability at the top, no learning in the ranks. A sure recipe for more disasters.

Time for some accountability and learning from 9/11.