The killing of CIA agents in Afghanistan highlighted the role of Jordanian intelligence in support of US operations there, Sana Abdallah reports from Amman The Jordanian government unsuccessfully kept a lid on the spectacular espionage drama that led to the 30 December suicide bombing by a Jordanian doctor that killed seven CIA agents and a Jordanian intelligence officer in Afghanistan. However, Jordan's intelligence and security collaboration with US counterparts in faraway lands is no longer secret. It was hardly unknown that Jordan's General Intelligence Department (GID) worked closely with the CIA over matters related to Al-Qaeda since 9/ 11. But, the bombing of the American intelligence service in eastern Afghanistan's Khost Province has raised criticism over the level of Jordan's cooperation with a notorious agency that is often blamed for many of the political and security woes in the region. Jordanian physician Humam Khalil Al-Balawi, 32, was the bomber in what has been described as the biggest operation against the CIA since the 1983 attack on the US Marines base in Beirut. Sharif Ali Bin Zaid, a member of the royal Hashemite's extended family, was the Jordanian case officer among the dead. Al-Balawi apparently tricked the GID and its CIA ally into trusting him enough to allow him entry into the highly-secured US base near the Pakistani border without being searched, as he reportedly promised to relay important information on the whereabouts of Al-Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman El-Zawahri. When the agents came out to greet him, he blew himself up. The attack also blew the cover of Jordan's clandestine cooperation with the CIA in Afghanistan, and dealt a serious blow to Jordanian and American intelligence-gathering operations after having failed to infiltrate so-called "jihadists" through the man they believed was a credible informant. Although they knew he was the same person who used the alias of Abu Dujana Al-Khorasani on Islamist Internet forums, the intelligence services were also duped into believing his claim that his online entries were merely a cover to maintain the trust of "jihadi" leaders. A video aired by Qatar's Al-Jazeera channel last Sunday showed Al-Balawi saying, "This is a message to the enemies of the umma (nation), to the Jordanian intelligence and the CIA... We say that we will never forget the blood of our Emir Baitullah Mehsud," adding that he vowed to avenge the death of Pakistan Taliban's leader who was killed in a US drone missile attack in Pakistan's South Waziristan 5 August. Al-Balawi, who was seen sitting next to the new leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, managed to infiltrate into and attack the very same US base believed to be the headquarters for providing information on suspected Al-Qaeda and Taliban sites then bombed by US drones. Meanwhile, in Amman, Sherif Ali was awarded a royal funeral by King Abdullah II and official obituary statements declared the man as a martyr killed in the line of duty during his "humanitarian service" in Afghanistan. It was days before Jordanian security officials would anonymously admit that he was in fact with the CIA agents that were killed, thanks to American media reports that identified Ali as the bomber's "handler". Thus, the secret of Jordan's collaboration with the CIA against their common enemy, Al-Qaeda and its allies, was uncovered with the Khost bombing, prompting intelligence sources to announce, for the first time, that the GID works with the US and other countries to fight terrorism anywhere, and not just in Jordan. This drew criticism from some opposition groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood's Islamic Action Front, which demanded that the government publicise Jordan's level of strategic cooperation with the CIA and its exact role in Afghanistan. During a visit to Washington earlier this week, Jordan's Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh told journalists that the kingdom in fact has counter-terrorism activities in Afghanistan, in addition to the "humanitarian effort needed there". He said Jordan was among the first countries to have a presence in Afghanistan, in reference to well- known Jordanian military medical services there. But Judeh went further, promising that "our presence in Afghanistan will be enhanced and increased in the coming phase," insisting that "we're also there to defend Jordan's national interests... and to defend Jordanians and safeguard them against this growing threat." However, security analysts are warning that Jordanian anti- terror collaboration with the Americans in Afghanistan will likely backfire, increasing the terror threat at home, where US Middle East policy is highly unpopular and is cited as one of the main causes for the rising number of "jihadi" recruits or supporters in the kingdom. The Jordanian intelligence community is apparently aware of this situation; thus its secrecy in the years-long collaboration with the CIA, according to a former intelligence officer who told Al-Ahram Weekly, on condition of anonymity, that there is now fear of retaliatory attacks in the kingdom and a repeat of the November 2005 attacks in Amman. The GID, which operates under the umbrella of the Jordanian armed forces, was instrumental in locating notorious Jordanian Al-Qaeda commander in Iraq, Abu Mussab Al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a US air strike in 2006, just months after he claimed responsibility for a shocking series of three suicide bombings in Amman that killed 60 people. Jordanian intelligence sources privately justify working with American counterparts in Iraq and Afghanistan by citing security at home, just as Foreign Minister Judeh did in his remarks in Washington. But Iraq is next door; the 2005 Amman suicide bombers were Iraqis, and close to one million Iraqis live in Jordan. Analysts say Afghanistan is a different story, even if Al-Qaeda and its network of cells sprang from there, adding that the 30 December Khost attack has raised questions about whether the Jordanian intelligence authorities were effectively protecting Jordan's security or just serving the US war in Afghanistan by collecting information for the Americans and risking the lives of Jordanian officers in distant lands. This aside from the risk posed to the lives of Jordanians at home in the case of a terrorist retaliation.
