CIA bomber may have been Jordanian double-agent

[unhappycamper]

CIA bomber may have been Jordanian double-agent
By Greg Miller, Chicago Tribune
Stars and Stripes online edition, Tuesday, January 5, 2010

WASHINGTON — The suicide bomber who killed eight people at a CIA compound in Afghanistan last week was a Jordanian who had been recruited by that nation's intelligence service to help U.S. spy agencies penetrate al-Qaida, according to a former senior U.S. intelligence official.

The bombing killed seven CIA employees who were apparently lured to a meeting with the supposed informant by the prospect of important new intelligence on al-Qaida's inner circle. The attack also killed a Jordanian intelligence officer believed to have been responsible for serving as the main point of contact with the informant accused of carrying out the attack.

The disclosure that the most deadly incident in recent CIA history may have been the work of a double-agent suggests a new level of sophistication in al-Qaida's efforts to retaliate against the agency responsible for an intense campaign of Predator strikes on the terrorist network in Pakistan over the past two years.

The revelations also reveal the inherent risks in the CIA's deep reliance on Jordan and other foreign partners in sensitive counterterrorism operations.

"That's how you do these operations — you find people who can conceivably penetrate terrorist organizations, try to turn them and run them" against terrorist targets, said the former U.S. intelligence official, who is familiar with aspects of last week's attack but spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Obviously, this one turned out tragically."


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=67027