Word: balawi
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...believed that Jordanian physician Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi would help it infiltrate Islamist extremist groups--even find Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's elusive No. 2. But this informant, it turned out, was also an assassin, whose Dec. 30 suicide bombing of an Afghanistan CIA base killed seven agency employees. Officials are still trying to figure out how they were duped...
...intelligence agencies have had their share of moles in recent years. Senior FBI agent Robert Hanssen was arrested in 2001 for turning over to Moscow the names of KGB assets working for the U.S.--information that led directly to many agents' deaths. Still, al-Balawi may be the first double agent to kill his handlers and himself. In the business of secrets and spies, it's hard to know who is the enemy...
...deaths of seven CIA agents and a Jordanian intelligence officer in a Dec. 30 suicide bombing--the agency's worst such incident in more than 25 years--were shocking enough. Even more alarming were reports that the attacker, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, 32, was a double agent who had been providing information on al-Qaeda to U.S. and Jordanian officials for at least a year. Analysts say that in addition to straining ties between intelligence communities in Washington and Amman, the incident could hinder progress in hunting down terrorists, including Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda...
...attack in context, what we need to understand is that it is not the CIA's standard operating procedure to bring informants into bases, as was done with Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi in Khost. Under more favorable circumstances, the CIA's field officers always prefer to meet with informants one on one and in carefully scouted, out-of-the-way places chosen to protect the anonymity of the informant. But things have to be done differently in Afghanistan, where the CIA has a well-grounded fear that its operatives will be kidnapped or killed - a risk that applies...
...grim assessment of the U.S.-led coalition forces' ability to gather actionable data on its elusive enemy. Analysts, according to the report, are "starved for information from the field," to the point that their jobs feel more like "fortune-telling than serious detective work." Despite misgivings after al-Balawi's lethal betrayal, the CIA's attempts - with Jordan's help - to recruit another spy to infiltrate al-Qaeda may still be their best...