28 February 2010 - 22H44  

CIA suicide bomber calls for jihad against Jordan
An undated ID picture obtained by AFP in January 2010 shows Jordanian Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi. The Jordanian double-agent who blew himself up in Afghanistan, killing seven CIA officers, called for jihad against his homeland in a video made before his death in the suicide attack, monitors said Sunday.
An undated ID picture obtained by AFP in January 2010 shows Jordanian Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi. The Jordanian double-agent who blew himself up in Afghanistan, killing seven CIA officers, called for jihad against his homeland in a video made before his death in the suicide attack, monitors said Sunday.

AFP - A Jordanian double-agent who blew himself up in Afghanistan, killing seven CIA officers, called for jihad against his homeland in a video made before his death in the suicide attack, monitors said Sunday.

Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi accused Jordan of being behind the death of two top militant leaders, according to the report by IntelCenter, a US group that monitors Islamist websites.

"There is no solution to the situation in Jordan other than mobilising to the land of jihad to learn the arts of war and train in them, then return to Jordan and begin operations," Balawi was quoted as saying.

"Kill them with knives and swords. Lure them, trick them, use their own methods against them -- use counter-intelligence," he said.

The Jordanian intelligence service, believing Balawi to be their agent, brought him to Pakistan with the mission of spying on militants there.

On December 30, he blew himself up at a meeting on Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost province in Afghanistan, killing the seven US intelligence officers and his Jordanian handler.

In the video, Balawi accused Jordan of involvement in the killing of a top Al-Qaeda leader and a Hezbollah commander, IntelCenter reported.

"The Jordanian intelligence apparatus is the one that provided the Americans with sensitive data about the location of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi," Balawi said, adding, "they are the ones who killed" him.

Zarqawi, formerly the head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, was killed on June 7, 2006 in a US airstrike.

"We were able to obtain some other information, like the role Jordanian intelligence played in the killing of Imad Mughniyah, the military chief of Hezbollah," Balawi said.

"Jordanian intelligence is the one that killed this man... through the planting of a spy," he said without elaborating.

Mughniyah was killed in a February 12, 2008 car bombing in Damascus.

Balawi described Jordanian intelligence as "America's dogs," adding that they are trusted by the United States, while "Pakistani intelligence isn't trusted."

When Balawi was supposedly spying on militants in Pakistan, the country's intelligence service was kept in the dark, he said.

"Pakistani intelligence is too lowly in American eyes to be involved in any action on Pakistan's own soil," he said in the video.

Balawi said that after the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, he attempted to go to the country to fight, but was not successful.

He said he had been influenced to take the path of violence by a video of Israelis watching jets bomb Gaza during the Jewish state's late-2008 to early-2009 assault on the enclave.

Balawi was in arrested by Jordanian security services in late 2007 for "possession of prohibited materials," he said, and given the option of spying for Jordan.

He took it, or pretended to, and Jordan flew him to Pakistan, where he travelled to the Waziristan region, he said.

Once there, he connected with militants in the region, and planned to kill his Jordanian handler, he said. But the handler arranged for him to meet with CIA officers in Afghanistan.

Balawi went to the meeting armed with a suicide belt. Once there, he detonated it, killing himself and eight others.

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