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CBS News(CBS/ AP) The suspected Jordanian double agent who killed seven CIA officers in Afghanistan was thrown into jail by Jordanian intelligence to coerce him to track down al Qaeda's No. 2 leader, Mideast counterterrorism officials said Tuesday.
The 32-year-old doctor's allegiance was to al Qaeda from the start, however, and not to his Jordanian recruiters or their CIA friends - and it never wavered, a Middle East counterterrorism official told The Associated Press.
He and two other counterterrorism officials gave identical accounts of how and when Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi was recruited.
Jordanian intelligence believed the devout young Muslim had been persuaded to support U.S. efforts against al Qaeda in Afghanistan and wanted al-Balawi to help capture or kill Ayman al-Zawahri, a fellow doctor from Egypt who is Osama bin Laden's right-hand man, according to another counterterrorism official based in the Middle East.
All four spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment on matters involving the CIA and Jordan's national security.
Family and friends said al-Balawi, a father of two young daughters, had practiced medicine in a clinic at a Palestinian refugee camp near Zarqa, the hometown of slain al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. One high school classmate, Mohammed Yousef, described al-Balawi as "brilliant," well-spoken and well-mannered, though he kept mostly to himself and did not mingle much with relatives or friends.
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http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/01/06/world/main6060902.shtml
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