WASHINGTON/WSJ -- The suicide bomber who killed seven Central Intelligence Agency employees and one Jordanian intelligence officer was likely a Jordanian doctor affiliated with al Qaeda, according to current and former U.S. officials and an Afghan security official.
[FD: See how complex this little war in Afghanistan has gotten. Jordanian Bomber brought in to Afghanistan to discuss Pakistan tribal region... then he wipes out the CIA intellegence structure of the larger area with HIS one bomb. How do you fight this type of war?]
The bomber was recruited as an informant and brought to the CIA's base in Khost Province by a Jordanian intelligence official, Sharif Ali bin Zeid, who was working with the CIA, according to an Afghan security official.
The blast on Dec. 30 killed four CIA officers, three CIA contractors and Mr. bin Zeid, officials said. Six CIA employees were wounded in the attack.
The new information about the bomber's Arab background suggests that the meeting was significant, possibly relating to intelligence collection or operations against al Qaeda's top leadership, who are believed to be guarded by Arabs in Pakistan's tribal region, a former senior U.S. intelligence official said.
The CIA's deputy chief of station from Kabul also traveled to the meeting at the CIA Khost base, Forward Operating Base Chapman, according to former intelligence officials, further pointing to the meeting's importance.
The Afghan security official said the bomber was Hammam Khalil Abu Mallal, who is also known as Abu Dujana Al-Khurasani. The Pakistani Taliban also claimed that Mr. Hammam was the bomber, Arabic Web sites reported Monday.
Mr. Hammam was an active recruiter and an "elite writer" on al Qaeda's secure al-Hisba Web site, where he went by the name Abu Dujana Al-Khurasani, according to the journal of West Point's Combating Terrorism Center.
In a posting on the site in May of 2007, Mr. Hammam sought to persuade people from a variety of backgrounds, including African-Americans, Native Americans, Vietnamese, and poor immigrants to joint the fight against their "oppressor," which is the United States, the West Point analysts found.
Mr. Hammam had studied medicine in Turkey with government funding, according to a translation of the Jordanian website Jerasa News by the Middle East Media Research Institute. He left Jordan about a year ago after being detained for a few months by Jordanian intelligence officers.
The Jordanian news outlet cited eyewitness reports that Jordanian security forces had arrested Mr. Hammam's youngest brother and summoned his father. A Jordanian official denied that the bomber came from Jordan, according to the Jordanian news site.
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