Perhaps, but this what the story said.
“According to sources, unbeknown to the ATF, the target of their operation was a FBI confidential informant, a fact that only became known to them in April of this year after an 18-month investigation that cost millions of dollars of tax dollars.”
“The confidential informant is a former high-level drug dealer who had been deported by the DEA. The FBI, however, recruited him as a counter-terrorism informant, providing information on potential dirty bombs or Al Qaeda suspects moving through the border region.”
Exactly. The informant was working for the FBI.
ATF did not know that they were targeting an informant. Which if you know how operations work is impossible unless the FBI was breaking it’s own rules. Which they obviously were.
“The confidential informant is a former high-level drug dealer who had been deported by the DEA. The FBI, however, recruited him as a counter-terrorism informant, providing information on potential dirty bombs or Al Qaeda suspects moving through the border region.”
That's what caught my attention.