Washington – How Did An Al-Qaida Double Agent Dupe The CIA in Afghanistan?

Washington – For seven years he was known by the alias Abu Dujana al-Khorasani, an influential purveyor of jihad on the Internet. His writings, assessments, and sermons were widely disseminated on the web. His entries were often laced with evasive, slippery language rich with Koranic references and citations that he used to burnish his credentials as a supporter of violent resistance to the United States.

It became clear two days ago that behind the Internet persona lurked a 36-year-old doctor from the Jordanian village of Zarqa. Last week, he did with his body what he had been preaching for years: he killed American security personnel.

The doctor from the same town which produced Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the head of Al-Qaida in Mesopotamia who was killed by the Americans in 2006, himself became a suicide bomber who infiltrated a secret CIA base on the Afghan-Pakistani border and killed seven American senior intelligence officials and one Jordanian intelligence officer.

Some reports claim the name of the doctor is Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi. Relatives say he worked at a clinic in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan and that he sought to join a medical aid mission to the Gaza Strip.

A year ago, he was arrested by Jordanian authorities and was subsequently interrogated by the country’s experienced intelligence agencies.

Jordanian officials said they succeeded in “persuading” him to disavow his prior activities and enlisting him as their agent. A Jordanian intelligence officer, Capt. Sharif Ali bin Zeid, was assigned as his direct superior.

After training and instruction, bin Zeid and his spy were sent to Afghanistan. It was there that the doctor executed missions for the Jordanians and the CIA His objective was to infiltrate the ranks of Al-Qaida and the Taliban near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and to gather information.

Al Balawi’s primary goal was to get close to the inner circle surrounding Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, the Egyptian radical and deputy to Osama bin Laden. The spy’s handlers had hoped that their shared medical background would help the Jordanian agent in carrying out his mission.

The doctor from Jordan, though, ended up making a fool of his handlers. He earned their trust, occasionally passing along intelligence that was thought to be reliable, and ultimately was revealed to be a double agent.

He remained faithful to the jihadist ideology and received instructions from Al-Qaida, which provided him with explosives used to carry out the suicide attack against the CIA.

Armed with an explosives belt, he managed to infiltrate the base near the Afghan border town of Khost without being checked by security. His casualties included three experienced CIA officers, including the commander of the unit, as well as three officials from a private security firm.

The failure is considered all the more devastating due to the fact that the base is used as a forward position from which CIA agents embark on their meetings with their sources.

The residual damage is substantial, and the incident sets back American efforts to reach Al-Qaida’s leadership. It is also a devastating blow to morale, one which is testament to the Islamist group’s ability to infiltrate the heart of the American spy agency.

Moreover, the attack proved deeply embarrassing to Jordanian intelligence, which is now fearful that the intimate ties it has developed with the CIA over the years could be at risk.

It was the Jordanians who supplied the Americans with information in 2006 that allowed them to kill Zarqawi in Iraq. In its campaign against global terrorism, the CIA relied on the Jordanians as their most trusted allies.

Jordanian intelligence officers work shoulder to shoulder with their American counterparts in the field. In addition, Jordan provides the U.S. with skilled interrogators who question terror suspects. The CIA also shares a headquarters with Jordanian intelligence inside the Hashemite kingdom.

In the war on terror, there isn’t much time to mourn despite the messages of condolence sent by friendly agencies, including Mossad.

King Abdullah and Queen Rania attended the funera of the officer, who was a relative of the royal couple.

Both intelligence agencies will lick their wounds, internalize the lessons, and move forward in their grueling war on terror that has dragged on for the last decade