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Senior Jordanian intelligence sources speaking to TIME on condition of anonymity have disputed the claim that Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, whose suicide bombing of a U.S. facility in Afghanistan last week killed seven CIA operatives, had been a double agent working for al-Qaeda all along. Instead, they say, after he was initially turned following his arrest by the Jordanians in 2007, al-Balawi had been a useful asset whose work helped the Americans target al-Qaeda leaders. But, they claim, his outrage at the high number of civilian casualties inflicted in the resulting strikes...
...year-old al-Balawi, recruited by the Jordanians during his imprisonment for outlawed activities on jihadi websites, had seemed to be an ideal candidate for a top-priority espionage mission: penetrating the al-Qaeda circle around Ayman al-Zawahiri, the movement's top ideologue and second-in-command who is believed to be hiding in Pakistan's tribal wilds. Al-Balawi was a known presence on radical Islamic websites; he was Arab; and, like al-Zawahiri, he was a trained doctor whose medical skills were needed in treating al-Qaeda and Taliban war casualties...
...Jordan's spy agency, the General Intelligence Directorate (GID), was respected and trusted by the CIA for its ability to infiltrate agents into radical Islamists groups. A mole planted by the Jordanians in al-Qaeda's affiliate in Iraq had provided the key intelligence tip that allowed U.S. forces to kill the group's leader, Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, in a June 2006 air strike. (See an audio slideshow about the war in Afghanistan...
...senior Jordanian intelligence source tells TIME that al-Balawi was sent to Pakistan at the behest of the CIA, with a plausible cover story: he was to be a medical student pursuing advanced university studies. An official in Amman, who like his colleagues requested anonymity, says that once al-Balawi set himself up in Pakistan's border region and sent out feelers to jihadi militants, "he was very helpful, and the CIA were grateful to him." This source tells TIME that al-Balawi pinpointed several al-Qaeda targets, which were attacked by U.S. forces in Afghanistan, and that "al-Balawi...
...Jordanians say that in December, al-Balawi requested an urgent meeting with the CIA and his Jordanian go-between, Captain Sharif Ali bin Zeid, reportedly a relation of the royal Jordanian family. To whet their appetite, al-Balawi dangled a tantalizing piece of information: he claimed to have "some information" on the whereabouts of al-Zawahiri, these sources...