Free Republic

It could be said that the U.S. government can run by remote control. On the day that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to blow up a Northwest airline flight headed for Detroit, several key government players were on holiday and didn't immediately return to their posts in Washington, D.C. President Obama was on vacation in Hawaii, golfing and enjoying time with his family. He returned to the White House on Jan. 4. A source told CBS News that Leon Panetta, director of the CIA, was on holiday in Monterey, Calif. when Abdulmutallab was apprehended, and didn't return to CIA headquarters in...

WASHINGTON – Warnings were ignored, security was lax and good judgment was lacking, leading to one of the worst tragedies in CIA history, when a double-agent suicide bomber killed seven CIA employees in Afghanistan last December

CAIRO — The Jordanian doctor who killed seven CIA employees in a suicide attack in Afghanistan said in video clips broadcast posthumously today that all jihadists must attack U.S. targets to avenge the death of Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud. Footage showed Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi — whom the CIA had cultivated as an asset against al-Qaida — sitting with Mehsud's successor in an undisclosed location. It essentially confirmed the Pakistani Taliban's claim of responsibility for one of the worst attacks in CIA history, though a senior militant told The Associated Press that al-Qaida and Afghan insurgents played roles,...

SNIPPET: "Some comments • I have to assume that al-Balawi was thoroughly debriefed by al-Qaida before being sent on this mission, and I'm surprised no one has sought to correlate his "infiltration" of al-Qaida with Abu Yahya al-Libi's book released over the summer: "Guidance on the Ruling of the Muslim Spy" • See also: Al Qaida: Western Spies Multiply "Like Locusts"."

The wife of the triple agent who recently killed 7 CIA workers in Afghanistan has no problem showing her true hateful Islamic nature as well. Hopefully she will go to Afghanistan and one of our brave troop members will send her to Allah. To view this short video.....

New details have emerged of the failures that led to the deaths of seven CIA agents in Afghanistan. Christina Lamb and Miles Amoore reportIt was the week after Christmas and there was a line of paper Santas hanging in the small chow house at Forward Operating Base Chapman, sent to Afghanistan by loved ones back home. Among the CIA agents waiting in the morning chill, amid the exercise bicycles and weights, were a mother of three and a father of three who had had to tell their children they would not be home for Christmas. This was not the first...

The Jordanian doctor arrived in a red station wagon that came directly from Pakistan and sped through checkpoints at a CIA base in Afghanistan before stopping abruptly at an improvised interrogation center. Outside stood one of the CIA's top experts on al-Qaeda, ready to greet the doctor and hear him describe a way to kill Ayman al-Zawahiri, the organization's No. 2 and a man long at the top of U.S. target lists. The Jordanian exited the car with one hand in his pocket, according to the accounts of several U.S. officials briefed on the incident. An American security guard approached...

* The Wall Street Journal * OPINION * JANUARY 7, 2010, 11:12 P.M. ET The Meaning of al Qaeda's Double Agent The jihadists are showing impressive counterintelligence ability that the CIA seems to have underestimated. By REUEL MARC GERECHT The recent death in Afghanistan of seven American counterterrorist officers, one Jordanian intelligence operative, and one exploding al Qaeda double agent ought to give us cause to reflect on the real capabilities of the Central Intelligence Agency and al Qaeda. The report card isn't good. America's systemic intelligence problems were partially on display in the bombing at the CIA's Forward Operating...

SNIPPET: "Hakeemullah Mehsud (left), the Leader of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan. and Humam Khalil Muhammed Abu Mulal al Balawi (right), the suicide bomber who carried out the attack at Combat Outpost Chapman in Khost, Afghanistan. The al Qaeda operative who killed seven US CIA operatives and guards, and a Jordanian intelligence official, was on a martyr's videotape with the leader of the Pakistani Taliban. Humam Khalil Muhammed Abu Mulal al Balawi, a Jordanian Islamist who was thought to have been turned against al Qaeda, appeared on a videotape with Hakeemullah Mehsud, the leader of the Movement of...

ISLAMABAD (AP) - The Jordanian doctor who killed seven CIA employees in a suicide attack in Afghanistan said in video clips broadcast posthumously Saturday that all jihadists must attack U.S. targets to avenge the death of Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud. Footage showed Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi - whom the CIA had cultivated as an asset against al-Qaida - sitting with Mehsud's successor in an undisclosed location. It essentially confirmed the Pakistani Taliban's claim of responsibility for one of the worst attacks in CIA history, though a senior militant told The Associated Press that al-Qaida and Afghan insurgents played...

Could The CIA Have Achieved What al-Qaeda Did? The audacious al-Qaeda attack in Khost, Afghanistan and the failures to detect the Detroit bomb plot are indications of a broken CIA, writes Toby Harnden in Washington Toby Harnden 09 Jan 2010 At the George Bush Center for Intelligence – better known as CIA headquarters – in Langley, Virginia there is a crisis of confidence. Last week, seven of its personnel returned to Dover Air Force Base in Delaware in flag-draped coffins. They were killed in an audacious attack in which a triple agent detonated a suicide bomb as he was debriefed...

January 09, 2010 CIA Director Defends Agency in Suicide Attack CIA Director Leon Panetta says the Jordanian man who killed seven CIA employees and himself in a bombing in Afghanistan was about to be searched before the explosion. The bomber was cultivated by the CIA in the fight against Al Qaeda, but apparently was a double agent. Panetta writes in Sunday's Washington Post that it wasn't a question of trusting a potential intelligence source and that no one ignored the potential danger in dealing with this man. Panetta, whose article was posted on the newspaper's Web site Saturday, says the...

The Jordanian doctor arrived in a red station wagon that came directly from Pakistan and sped through checkpoints at a CIA base in Afghanistan before stopping abruptly at an improvised interrogation center. Outside stood one of the CIA's top experts on al-Qaeda, ready to greet the doctor and hear him describe a way to kill Ayman al-Zawahiri, the organization's number two and a man long at the top of U.S. target lists. The Jordanian exited the car with one hand in his pocket, according to the accounts of several U.S. officials briefed on the incident. An American security guard approached...

The man believed to be the suicide bomber who killed seven CIA employees and contractors last month appears in a newly released video, in which he vows revenge for the killing of a Taliban leader. The video shows Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, whom a former U.S. intelligence official identified as the suicide bomber. Al-Balawi's brother told CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson that the man in the video was his sibling. In the tape, which aired Saturday on the Arabic satellite news channel Al-Jazeera, al-Balawi says his message is for the CIA and Jordanian intelligence. The December 30 bombing at...

The recent death in Afghanistan of seven American counterterrorist officers, one Jordanian intelligence operative, and one exploding al Qaeda double agent ought to give us cause to reflect on the real capabilities of the Central Intelligence Agency and al Qaeda. The report card isn't good. America's systemic intelligence problems were partially on display in the bombing at the CIA's Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost province. Worse, al Qaeda showed skill that had been lacking in many of its operations. In response, President Barack Obama will likely be obliged to adopt counterterrorist methods that could make his administration as tough...

Yet, of the Americans who died last week in the suicide bombing at the CIA’s most sensitive outpost in Afghanistan, it is the seventh whose presence has raised the most urgent questions as the US scrambles to repair — and avenge — the damage done to the hunt for Osama bin Laden. According to a security official in Kabul with close ties to the CIA, when Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi carried out his deadly mission at Forward Operating Base Chapman, he managed to kill the agency’s deputy head of station for the whole of Afghanistan. The senior agent was waiting...

The wife of the suspected Jordanian double agent who killed seven CIA workers in Afghanistan said Wednesday her husband regarded the United States as an adversary. Defne Bayrak, the Turkish wife of Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, told Turkish media by telephone she was shocked at the news that her husband blew himself up at a base in Afghanistan on Dec. 30, killing himself and the officers. Bayrak, who lives in Istanbul, said her husband had plans to become a specialist in surgery in Turkey and doubts he was working for the CIA.

US intelligence officials believe the suicide bomb attack that killed seven CIA officers in Afghanistan last month was planned with the help of Osama bin Laden’s inner circle, raising fears that the al-Qaeda leader is enjoying a lethal resurgence. The attack, carried out by a Jordanian triple-agent whom the CIA believed was about to divulge the whereabouts of al-Qaeda's deputy leader, could not have taken place without the prior knowledge and assistance of the Haqqani network, US officials believe. The powerful Taleban faction is thought to be shielding bin Laden. Against all normal security protocol, al-Balawi was allowed onto the...

EXCLUSIVE: CIA Suicide Bomber Photo First photo of Humam al-Balawi, Double Agent Who Killed Seven CIA Operatives in Afghanistan [Pic in URL] By BRIAN ROSS and NASSER ATTA Jan. 6, 2010 ABC News has obtained an exclusive photo of suicide bomber Humam Muhammed al-Balawi, the Jordanian double agent who killed seven CIA operatives and his Jordanian handler in Afghanistan on December 30. An exclusive photo obtained by ABC News shows Humam Khalil Muhammed al Balawi, identified as suicide bomber who killed seven C.I.A. agents and his handler at Forward Operating Base Chapman near Khost city, Afghanistan, on Dec. 30, 2009....

The suspected Jordanian double agent who killed eight people on a CIA base in Afghanistan was recruited by his country's intelligence agency after it threw him in jail to coerce him into helping them track down al-Qaida's No. 2 leader, counterterrorism officials in the Middle East said Tuesday. Three Middle Eastern counterterrorism officials said 32-year-old physician Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi was jailed for three days after he signed up for a humanitarian mission to the Gaza Strip with a Jordanian field hospital following Israel's offensive there. At that time, authorities were aware that al-Balawi had posted fiery writings on militant...