Triple agent was 'CIA's best hope for years'

CIA Director Leon Panetta, left, arrives for a meeting with President Barack Obama and various agency heads to discuss ongoing reviews of the Christmas Day incident, Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2010, at the White House in Washington.


The Jordanian suicide bomber who killed several CIA agents in Afghanistan last week was so highly regarded by Western intelligence that the White House had been told to expect important information from his debriefing, it was reported today.

Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, 36, a Jordanian doctor, had been recommended to the Americans by Jordanian intelligence as a reliable informant spying on the al-Qaeda leadership, according to the New York Times.

He was seen by the CIA and the US Administration as the American intelligence agencies' best hope of tracking down Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, the leaders of al-Qaeda.

This would explain why there were eight people present in the room with Mr al-Balawi to hear his debriefing. According to former CIA officials, debriefings are usually attended by only one or two intelligence staff.

"He had provided information that checked out, about people in al-Qaeda whom he had access to," a senior intelligence official, told the newspaper. "This was one of the agency’s most promising efforts."

In fact, al-Balawi was not a double but a triple agent, leading an extraordinary life on the frontline of America’s war against militant Islam.

An investigation by The Times has revealed that the trainee doctor was an open and public supporter of al-Qaeda, and that his months of secret work for Jordanian intelligence, feeding a stream of information about low-level al-Qaeda operatives to his handler, was a means to establish his credibility.

On December 30 al-Balawi arrived at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost province near the Pakistan border. He was trusted sufficiently to be allowed past a security checkpoint without being searched.

In this Saturday Jan. 2, 2010 photo released by the Jordan Royal Palace, King Abdullah II of Jordan, centre, and his wife Queen Ranian, centre left, look toward the coffin of Jordanian intelligence officer, Ali bin Zaid, during a ceremony in Amman, Jordan



He detonated explosives strapped to his body and killed four CIA agents, three CIA security officers, and his Jordanian handler, Ali bin Zaid, an army captain and distant cousin of King Abdullah II of Jordan. The King, his wife, and other members of the Jordanian royal family attended Mr bin Zaid’s funeral on Friday.

The chain of events began a few months ago, when al-Balawi contacted Jordan's spy agency, the General Intelligence Department (GID), with tips that proved valuable. A Jordanian official admitted yesterday that the information on al-Qaeda operatives in the kingdom had "allowed us to abort a terrorist operation that would have threatened the security and stability of our country".

On the face of it al-Balawi seemed a valuable recruit. Born in Kuwait on December 25, 1977, he moved to Jordan with his family after Iraq invaded in 1991 — a time when many Jordanians were forced to flee the emirate. His father owns two pharmacies in Zarqa in Jordan, also the home town of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq who was killed in 2006.

The al-Balawi Bedu tribe is from Tabuk, in western Saudi Arabia, and has branches in Jordan, the West Bank and the Sinai Peninsula.

According to records of the Jordan Medical Association, al-Balawi graduated from Istanbul University in 2002. He then worked as an intern in two hospitals, one run by the Muslim Brotherhood charity. He went on to practise medicine at a clinic in a Palestinian refugee camp near Zarqa.

Jordanian boy walks along the wall of an UNRWA clinic, where Jordanian suicide bomber Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi used to work as a physician in Zarqa city, East of Amman, Jordan, Tuesday, Jan. 5, 2010.


Al-Balawi became attracted to militant Islam and moderated the online radical Islamic forum, Hisbah.net, based in Yemen, often saying that his ultimate dream in life was to die as a martyr in the holy war against the US and Israel.

In an interview on September 26 last year al-Balawi said he had "been moulded on the love for jihad since my childhood". He vowed to "take up arms, and to wear an explosive belt, to avenge the killing of children and women in the Gaza War".

He also said that he decided to leave his pro-jihadist writings in favour of "real jihad on the ground, because I came to realise that preaching about jihad is not enough ... You have to carry out jihad in practice."

He said that he hoped to meet all jihadist writers who shared his vision and contributed to jihadist websites "in al-Fardous" — the Arabic for Paradise.

To Jordanian intelligence, these jihadi credentials must have seemed the perfect cover. The GID checked al-Balawi out and decided that he was genuine. The official said that al-Balawi had been interrogated by officers from the GID in March 2009 because of suspicions about his activities. He had been released because the inquiry found "nothing relevant".

"Months later he contacted us via e-mail and provided information about ill intentions against Jordan, and allowed us to foil terrorist operations targeting the kingdom. So we decided to pursue our contacts with him on a friendly basis to safeguard our country," the official told The Times.

Jihadist websites, however, revealed that al-Balawi was working for his handlers' enemies. They said that the GID, believing the bomber to be its double agent, took him to eastern Afghanistan, to help to track Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian physician said to be second-in-command of al-Qaeda, who US intelligence officials believe is hiding in the lawless border region.

Jordan has had strong intelligence co-operation with the CIA since the 9/11 attacks. Its counter-terror teams operating inside Iraq helped US forces in 2006 to track and kill al-Zarqawi. It is thought that Jordan believed al-Balawi could help the US to trap and kill al-Zawahiri.

Mohammad Abu Rumman, a prominent Jordanian analyst of radical Islamic movements, said that al-Balawi, a member of the younger generation of jihadists, was heavily influenced by Osama bin Laden, al-Zarqawi, the US-led war on Iraq and the Israeli attack against Gaza in 2008.

"He is one of the key al-Qaeda spokesmen," said Abu Rumman. "He always called for jihad against the Americans and the Israelis." Jihadist websites said al-Balawi was also nicknamed "the doctor of Mujahidin". They said that he was the first Arab to join the Taleban in Pakistan.

Al-Balawi, also known as Abu Dujana al-Khorasani, was married to a Turkish woman, said by relatives to be a journalist, and had two young daughters. His immediate family lives in Nuzha, a mixed middle and working-class neighbourhood in Amman.

A high school friend, Mohammad Yousef, said al-Balawi told family and friends in March that he was going to Turkey to take an exam that would have allowed him to practise medicine in the US. Instead, he went to Afghanistan, where he joined other Arab fighters with al-Qaeda.

Triple agent was 'CIA's best hope for years' - Times Online