CIA UNDERESTIMATED ITS ENEMY

As we learn more about the killing of seven CIA agents at a forward operating base in Afghanistan on December 30, 2009, it is clear the Agency, and its Jordanian counterpart, the General Intelligence Department, sometimes known as the Mukhabarat, underestimated Al Qaeda and its allies within the Pakistani and Afghani Taliban.
Ever since the wipe-out of the CIA team, which had been targeting Al Qaeda and Pakistani Taliban leaders for assassination, the Mukhabarat has tried to downplay its part in what turned out to be a disastrous intelligence operation. The Mukhabarat, which likes to think it is as good as the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, had convinced the CIA it had a double agent who could deliver up Osama Bin Laden or, at the very least, his deputy, Dr. Ayman Al Zawahiri, for assassination. The fact that the agent eventually turned on his handlers before blowing up 7 CIA personnel and two Jordanian agents, demonstrated a serious lack of judgment on the part of the Jordanians and the CIA. While the episode exposed a dangerous naiveté on the part of some CIA operatives it also highlighted that the enemy was capable of planning a deadly intelligence sting.
The agent assassin was Human Kalil Abu Malal al-Balawi, aged 31. Like Bin Laden’s deputy, Al Zawahiri, he was a doctor, born in Kuwait, of Palestinian origin. He was married to a Turkish journalist and turned to radical Islam because of his anger at the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the Israeli treatment of Palestinians, particularly in Gaza where the Israeli military was accused of war crimes. Just like other radicalized Muslims over the past three decades, Balawi was particularly upset about foreigners occupying Muslim lands. His views on that issue mirrored the ethos that motivated the Mujahideen, whom the U.S. supported in their war against the Soviets in Afghanistan. It is that same ethos that now fuels the ideological engine driving the Taliban and many Muslim militias across the Middle East.
In 2001, Balawi and his wife moved from Turkey to Jordan where they had two children. He worked in a Palestinian refugee camp outside Amman, the Jordanian capital and soon became very angry about the plight of Palestinians throughout the region, especially those under Israeli control. At some point in the past couple of years, he used online postings to express radical views about the U.S. invasion of Iraq, as well as the developing war in Afghanistan. He also condemned Israeli military strategy in Gaza and the West Bank. His internet activity brought him to the attention of the Mukhabarat in its headquarters in the Jordanian capital, Amman. Within that H.Q. is an area set aside for joint CIA-Mukhabarat operations and for the interrogation of suspects seized by Jordan or renditioned to Amman by the CIA. The Mukhabarat is known for using enhanced interrogation techniques and has often been accused of torturing suspects. It operates in a society where there little accountability, a fact made clear in past State Department country reports and in the literature of international human rights organizations.
In or around 2007, Balawi found himself in the hands of Mukhabarat interrogators and was held in the section of its H.Q. reserved for high value suspects. That is where the real story begins but it is unlikely to be revealed by the CIA or the Jordanians. What we can reasonably surmise is that the Jordanians saw in Balawi the ideal terrorist agent for infiltrating the core leadership of Al Qaeda, provided of course he could be “de-radicalized.” The concept of “de-radicalizing” detainees lay at the heart of the naiveté of the CIA and Mukhabarat. It was an intelligence technique the CIA tinkered with in Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and in secret prisons across the globe. It evolved around the principle that enhanced interrogation could be used to turn detainees into ideal terrorist agents. The Jordanians were familiar with the strategy and believed they could divest Balawi of his radical views. In pursuing that goal they ignored the fact he did not arrive at his radical views by accident. He was, after all, a highly intelligent individual who had espoused the concept of jihad and martyrdom for years. If history has proven anything, it is how difficult it can be to convince people who are wrapped up in religious zealotry to see the error of their ways, or to see a conflict from a westernized perspective. Balawi may have quickly realized just how desperate the CIA and Mukhabarat were to recruit him, especially when they finally promised him massive sums of money for his services. From his perspective, they were providing him with the opportunity to fulfill his dream of being a martyr. It is staggering to think that that his interrogators did not pay enough attention to the online postings he had made to radical websites in which he had warned other jihadists not be weak like him. He had even lamented the fact he would probably die some day in his bed rather than be a martyr because he lacked courage.
But, all of a sudden, he was being afforded the opportunity to be a martyr and to deal a major blow to the two nations his father has since claimed he saw as the enemy – the United States of America and Jordan. He had the opportunity to impress the man he most admired, Osama Bin Laden.
Once he became a Mukhabarat agent, run mostly by the CIA, he was sent to Pakistan and Afghanistan to infiltrate the Taliban and Al Qaeda. By then, he had clearly chosen to offer himself up to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. While we may never know the exact nature of his relationships with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, it is fair to assume he was well briefed by them in his new role as their triple agent. The fact that he was able to become a valuable and trusted asset of the CIA and Jordanians indicates that his Taliban and Al Qaeda handlers were sophisticated operators and that the CIA and Jordanians were naïve and careless. The Taliban in particular had plenty of experience running double and triple agents in the war with the Soviets. They, more than Al Qaeda, were probably instrumental in ensuring he maintained a perfect cover any time he met with his CIA and Mukhabarat handlers. It is likely he gained the confidence of the CIA in particular because the Taliban fed him actionable intelligence on parts of their own network – intelligence the CIA would have used to kill Taliban fighters. In this kind of war, it is not unusual so one side to sacrifice some of its own to perpetuate deception.
For its part, the CIA is never going to admit the damage Balawi caused but it is reasonable to believe he learned a great deal about the intelligence targeting strategies of the CIA in Afghanistan and Pakistan. At some point, his new terrorist handlers learned about the CIA’s forward operating base, “Chapman”, situated in Khost Province close to the Afghan-Pakistan border. The Taliban and Al Qaeda must have decided they could not pass up the opportunity to wipe out the CIA agents at that base. Such a blow, they would have reckoned, would seriously impair CIA targeting of Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders.
The CIA has not revealed whether Balawi visited “Chapman” before the fatal trip on December 30, but it is likely he did. When he arrived at the base on that fateful day, with explosives strapped to his body, he was not searched. Why? The answer is that he was considered such a critical piece in the CIA’s undercover war they regarded him as one of their own. Making that judgment cost lives and we may never know how much damage it did to the intelligence war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda. In reality, the CIA and the Jordanians underestimated their enemy and operated on false assumptions about radical Islam. They were guilty of bringing the devil into their lair - a devil with a sting in his tail. By any standards, one would have to admit that the sting was planned by a sophisticated enemy.
The Balawi saga highlights a war fought in the shadows. It is like a complex chess game in which a player making an ill-considered move can quickly find himself looking at checkmate.