10/20/2010 3:21 AM ET
(RTTNews) - The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said Tuesday that it had failed in fully checking out the antecedents of a double agent who carried out a suicide-bomb attack on its forward operating base at Khowst in Afghanistan.
Seven CIA staffers were killed in the attack at the Chapman Base, the worst against American intelligence agencies since the 1983 bombing of the CIA station in Beirut which claimed 17 officers.The official admission of insufficient "vetting procedure" is contained in a letter from CIA director Leon Panetta addressed to the staff of the agency.
It lists a range of slip-ups, including a major failure on the part of a CIA officer who failed to pass on a warning from the Jordanian intelligence about the attacker being a double agent.
Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, who carried out the suicide attack this January, was a Jordanian national who was regarded as a "prized informant."
The CIA chief said a secret internal inquiry found that the information provided by al-Balawi was cross-checked, and CIA officials believed that he was a potential goldmine of information.
"He had confirmed access within extremist circles, making a covert relationship with him - if he was acting in good faith -potentially very productive. But he had not rejected his terrorist roots," he wrote. Moreover, he said the internal inquiry highlighted several shortcomings regarding the agency's functioning. However, Panetta refused to fix the blame on any particular individual or group, and ruled out penalizing anyone for the fatal error. Further he said the decision which led to al-Balawi's recruitment as an informant was influenced by a resolve to carry the mission to its logical conclusion.
A medical doctor by training, the 36-year-old al-Balawi was arrested by Jordanian intelligence officials a year before the attack on the CIA base. Later he is said to have been recruited by Jordanian intelligence and the CIA under the belief that he had renounced his extremist leanings.
In the wake of the Chapman incident, Arabic TV channels broadcast purported pictures of al-Balawi in the company of late Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud, vowing to avenge the death of a former Taliban commander killed by Americans.
by RTT Staff Writer
================================================
No comments:
Post a Comment