Washington (CNN) -- Prior to a suicide attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan last December, some people within the CIA and the Jordanian intelligence service were skeptical about the reliability of a Jordanian informant, but those concerns were not passed on to officers on the base, according to a U.S. intelligence official.
A Jordanian intelligence officer told his U.S. counterpart in Amman, Jordan, that Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi might be working for al Qaeda and could be attempting to lure the Americans into a trap, but "unfortunately, some of those concerns weren't properly documented or conveyed through formal channels," the U.S. official said.
The findings are part of a just-completed CIA review of the attack, in which al-Balawi detonated a suicide bomb concealed under his clothing, taking seven CIA employees and two other people with him.
Al-Balawi initially had been recruited by the Jordanian spy agency and brought to the attention of the CIA. He had come to the base in Khost, Afghanistan, for his first face-to-face meeting with CIA officers to discuss information he was believed to have on Ayman Zawahiri, al Qaeda's second in command.
When he got out of the car, and before a security search, he triggered the bomb. Killed were CIA officers, agency security contractors, the Afghan driver and a Jordanian intelligence officer assigned to al-Balawi. Six CIA employees were seriously injured.
The U.S. intelligence official said the concerns about al-Balawi did not make their way to the right people, including those at the base who might have been more cautious in dealing with the man they thought could be a valuable asset.
CNN
