View Full Version : 8 Americans die in suicide blast in Afghanistan
Stealthed
12-30-2009, 14:38
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_AFGHANISTAN?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2009-12-30-15-02-18
CIA bombing raises question about safety protocols
By ANNE FLAHERTY
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The brazen attack that killed seven CIA employees at a remote outpost in Afghanistan is likely to raise questions about whether the agency could do more to protect its operatives on dangerous assignments.
Lawmakers on Thursday issued their condolences and withheld any judgment. But officials said they expected an eventual inquiry as to whether the CIA should re-examine how it deploys individuals in hostile regions and the lengths operatives are allowed to go to get information.
"We owe these brave men and women, and their families who are forever impacted, our deepest appreciation and thanks," said Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas, the House Intelligence Committee chairman who had met with the CIA team on a recent trip to Afghanistan.
Wednesday's bombing was a devastating blow to the tightknit spy community. Among the seven CIA employees killed was the chief of the CIA post, whom former officials identified as a mother of three. Six more agency personnel were wounded in what was considered the most lethal attack for the CIA since the war in Afghanistan began in 2001 and possibly even since the 1983 embassy bombing in Beirut.
The bombing occurred at a former military base on the edge of Khost city, the capital of Khost province, which borders Pakistan and is a Taliban stronghold.
The Taliban claimed responsibility, with a spokesman saying the bomber had been an Afghan National Army officer who blew himself up inside a gym at the base. U.S. officials would not confirm that the bomber had been a member of the Afghan army, leaving open the possibility that the uniform had been stolen.
Two former U.S. officials told The Associated Press that the man had been invited onto the base and had not been searched. One of the officials, a former senior intelligence employee, said the man was being courted as an informant and that it was the first time he had been brought inside the camp.
Another U.S. official, a former CIA employee, said it's not uncommon for an operative to forgo additional security if it means gaining a potential informant's trust.
"When you're trying to build a rapport and literally ask them to risk his life for you, you've got a lot to do to build their trust," the former employee said.
President Barack Obama and CIA Director Leon Panetta were joined by several leading lawmakers on Thursday in praising agency employees for their work.
"Those who fell yesterday were far from home and close to the enemy, doing the hard work that must be done to protect our country from terrorism," Panetta said Thursday in a statement confirming the deaths. "We owe them our deepest gratitude, and we pledge to them and their families that we will never cease fighting for the cause to which they dedicated their lives - a safer America."
In a letter to CIA employees, Obama said their fallen colleagues came from a "long line of patriots" who had helped to keep the nation safe despite grave risks.
Harold E. Brown Jr. of Fairfax, Va., was among the dead, according to his father, Harold E. Brown Sr. The elder Brown said his 37-year-old son, who grew up in Bolton, Mass., served in the Army and worked for the State Department. He is survived by a wife and three children ages 12, 10 and 2.
The CIA did not release information about the victims, citing the sensitivity of their mission and other ongoing operations.
---
Associated Press writers Adam Goldman in New York City, and Pamela Hess and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.
BBC Story on it
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8435502.stm
AngelsSix
12-30-2009, 19:11
It truly sucks no matter who it was...prayers out to the families tonight.
(CNN) -- An attack by a suicide bomber at a military base in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday killed eight Americans believed to be CIA employees, a senior U.S. official told CNN.
Prayers out to the families and ones left behind regardless of their affiliation.
incarcerated
12-30-2009, 21:58
The item below is from yesterday's news.
Have a plan to kill everyone you meet.
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5BS2JW20091229
Afghan soldier kills U.S. service member at army base
Sharafuddin Sharafyar
HERAT, Afghanistan
Tue Dec 29, 2009 1:53pm EST
HERAT, Afghanistan (Reuters) - An Afghan soldier killed a U.S. service member and wounded two Italian soldiers when he opened fire on foreign troops at an army base in western Afghanistan on Tuesday, a senior Afghan army officer said.
The shooting is the latest in a string of such incidents, at a time when Western countries are pouring resources into training Afghan soldiers and police to fight the Taliban insurgency.
"The soldier opened fire on the two Italians and one American in a joint Afghan and foreign base," General Khair Mohammad Khawari, a senior officer in western Afghanistan, told Reuters.
"Two Italian soldiers were wounded, one American soldier was killed," Khawari said, adding that the Afghan soldier had been wounded when NATO forces returned fire and was now in hospital.
The assailant comes from an area north of the Afghan capital Kabul and is thought to have mental health problems, Khawari added. The Taliban traditionally had less of a hold in northern Afghanistan but have expanded their reach across the country.
A spokesman for NATO-led forces said a U.S. service member had died following a shooting incident in western Afghanistan. Foreign and Afghan forces were investigating the incident, he said, but declined to give any more details.
Italian Defense Ministry officials said the attack, which was deliberate and not a case of friendly fire, occurred during a routine supply operation....
More info from the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/12/30/AR2009123000201.html?hpid=topnews&sub=AR&sid=ST2009123003189).
My Prayers go out to their Families and Friends.
One thing I don't like reading is the point that this is CIA FOB. I really feel the media should only be allowed to report that this is a U.S. FOB Base or a U.S. Military Bases. Even if the reporter did go out to that base and did ask the locals what is this camp or base to you. Who lives here, ETC
I feel its a FP thing?!!??!
incarcerated
12-31-2009, 15:25
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126225941186711671.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLTopStor ies
CIA Officers, Including Base Chief, Killed in Afghan Attack
Taliban Claims Responsibility for Suicide Bombing at Forward Operating Base
ASIA NEWS DECEMBER 31, 2009, 3:53 P.M. ET
By SIOBHAN GORMAN and ANAND GOPAL
WASHINGTON -- Seven Central Intelligence Agency officers and contractors were killed and six more wounded in a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan, the CIA Director Leon Panetta said Thursday, the second largest single-day loss for the spy agency in its history.
Among the casualties was the agency's base chief, former intelligence officials said.
The Taliban claimed responsibility Thursday for the bombing, the worst loss of life for the U.S. in Afghanistan since October....
The number of casualties in Wednesday's attack was second to those the agency sustained in the Beirut embassy bombing in 1983, which killed eight CIA officers. That attack eradicated the agency's entire Middle East group and was one of the key events that drove the creation of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center a few years later.
"It will mark this generation the same way Beirut marked mine," said Ron Marks, a 16-year CIA veteran, who left the agency in 1999. With CIA officers deployed to the far reaches of Afghanistan and Pakistan for extended periods, he said, the agency has been lucky to have avoided such attacks for as long as it did. "This is what you're going to have to expect," he said.
On Capitol Hill, the chairmen of the House and Senate intelligence committees issued statements of condolence....
Basenshukai
12-31-2009, 18:18
Maybe I'm paranoid, but something about all of these events in the last three months alone has me with the hair on the back of my neck standing up. For some reason I'm thinking something big may happen on New Year's Day. If it was me, that's when I'd attack. Maybe it's nothing... but I'm still carrying my piece tonight... and I'm not drinking. :)
I wonder if they are here...on The Continent...in our midst.......waiting for the 'signal'? I wonder how many? 200-300?
They are here and have been for sometime.
RT-1 "what the 'signal' of surprise will be? Wonder when? Where? Hmmmmmmmm"
"The Chair is against the wall"....."John has a long mustach".
Or something like that.
But you can bey your bottom dollar, they are here waiting......and so am I, to help them to their virgins.
dadof18x'er
01-01-2010, 07:37
RT-1 "what the 'signal' of surprise will be? Wonder when? Where? Hmmmmmmmm"
"The Chair is against the wall"....."John has a long mustach".
Or something like that.
But you can bey your bottom dollar, they are here waiting......and so am I, to help them to their virgins.
they would be foolish to wait till the nation swings back toward the right and builds up our defenses, we seem to be ripe for the plucking....God Have Mercy on us!!
Maybe I'm paranoid, but something about all of these events in the last three months alone has me with the hair on the back of my neck standing up. For some reason I'm thinking something big may happen on New Year's Day. If it was me, that's when I'd attack. Maybe it's nothing... but I'm still carrying my piece tonight... and I'm not drinking. :)
Basenshukai,
Whether or not anything happens on New Years Day, the atmosphere at the moment reminds me of the couple of years leading up to 9/11. (2000, & most of 2001). Lot's of foiled plots, major & minor, indications that the bad guys are working towards another big hit.
Could it be that while we're all mainly focused on A/stan, Yemen is now equivalent to A/stan in the late 90's in terms of training and logistical bases for AQ and the global jihad guys? If not Yemen, somewhere else? Are we (the invested Western countries) flexible and smart enough to move as fast as they do? I have my doubts (not about the guys that go in to do the hard work, but about the capacity of govt. to react appropriately to the signs before them).
I can only hope, but in the meantime - I agree, the hair in the back of my neck is standing up too.....
Take Care
G
I wonder if they are here...on The Continent...in our midst.......waiting for the 'signal'? I wonder how many? 200-300? I wonder how many wanna-bes will react because of what they think/heard/dreamed/guessed is the Grand Plan against America? Wonder what the 'signal' of surprise will be? Wonder when? Where? Hmmmmmmmm.:munchin
Let us enjoy our cookies and milk and remember to share with the children. The look on their face as the cookie meets the taste-bud region is heavenly....amen.
CIA.....you are being watched and the system you work within will continue to be used against you, my brethren. You are hated by haters. You are the most prized intelligence target to OBL, both in the field and on The Continent. You will bleed again and that will be a Goddambed shame....Lord forgive me.:mad:
Remember, gentle and not so gentle men, the most brilliant of the Evil will always challange the most brilliant of the Good. Soon.......very soon. I shall wait and listen from my front porch.
Cheers to 2010......it will be one for the ages. YMMV.
More like just 2 or 3 would do it. 2 or 3 shooting sprees in consecutive days in random places. This country would shut down. The Military would be patrolling Schools and Malls. I'm sure it would be in states where CCW is forbidden. The only fear Suicide attackers have is the possibility Failure.
The Reaper
01-01-2010, 10:17
More like just 2 or 3 would do it. 2 or 3 shooting sprees in consecutive days in random places. This country would shut down. The Military would be patrolling Schools and Malls. I'm sure it would be in states where CCW is forbidden. The only fear Suicide attackers have is the possibility Failure.
Exactly.
No practical security or defense. Best hope is that LEO, security, or CCWs get them soon after they start firing. Might even get away with it and get out alive, at least the first few times.
One or two sprees per day for a few days. Remember the DC Sniper?
Is there anything in the mall worth your life? What do you do as a business owner when people refuse to come to your place of business, in an already depressed economy?
TR
Utah Bob
01-01-2010, 11:53
More like just 2 or 3 would do it. 2 or 3 shooting sprees in consecutive days in random places. This country would shut down. The Military would be patrolling Schools and Malls. I'm sure it would be in states where CCW is forbidden. The only fear Suicide attackers have is the possibility Failure.
I've always been amazed at the insistence of the Jihadists to hit targets they see as symbolic. What terrorizes Americans is not that the Washington monument might be blown up or the White House, or the NYSE, but rather that their local supermarket or department store or city park might be a target.
People weren't afraid to go into financial centers in New York or hang out in D.C. after 9/11. They were afraid to get on planes.
I fear at some point they will more closely delve in to the American psyche and understand that the country is full of soft targets that would guarantee a nationwide panic if hit.
LongWire
01-03-2010, 05:07
Looks like they knew who they were targeting.......lesson for the future about your footprint and setting patterns. Of course they could be lying, and I wont say anymore on it.......RIP to those who Served.
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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126246258911313617.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLETopSto ries
By ANAND GOPAL
KABUL -- A senior commander connected to the Afghan Taliban and involved with the attack against the CIA that left eight people dead said Saturday that the bombing was retaliation for U.S. drone strikes in the Afghan-Pakistan border region.
"We attacked this base because the team there was organizing drone strikes in Loya Paktia and surrounding area," the commander said, referring to the area around Khost, the city where the U.S. facility was attacked. The commander, a prominent member of the Afghan insurgency, spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The suicide attack, which dealt the biggest loss to the agency in more than 25 years, killed a woman who was the station chief along with six other CIA officers and one private security contractor.
"We attacked on that particular day because we knew the woman who was leading the team" was there, the commander said.
The claims could not be independently verified late Saturday night and the CIA was not available for comment.
Both the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attacks. The Pakistani Taliban have claimed responsibility for attacks in the past that Western officials have later rejected.
Some drone strikes had been coordinated from the base, Western officials said. The strikes were to target senior leaders of al Qaeda, the Pakistani Taliban and an Afghan group called the Haqqani Network. The CIA operatives located on Forward Operating Base Chapman, which is near the Pakistani border, were involved in cultivating informants to target insurgent leaders using ground raids and drone strikes.
A number of key leaders of these three groups have been killed by the strikes, which mostly occur on the Pakistani side of the border. Al Qaeda and the leadership of the Haqqani Network are believed to have bases in this area. The strikes have caused considerable anger in the tribal border areas triggered by claims that civilians have also been killed.
U.S. officials maintain that the strikes are necessary to target insurgent leaders who use the border area as a sanctuary.
Warrior-Mentor
01-06-2010, 13:04
ANyone seen names released yet?
I remember Johnny "Mike" Spann's name came out.
Wondering if these will be released.
Haven't seen the names of the Staff employees but only the security contractors.
Scott Michael Roberson, 39, former Atlanta undercover narcotics officer
Jeremy Jason Wise, 35, former SEAL
Harold E. Brown Jr., 37, former Army
Here's a link (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100104/ap_on_re_us/us_cia_afghan_attack_7):
Rest in peace guys.
The POS that blew himself up issued a fatwa on a university professor that lives in my city. The guy has been hiding ever since, he has bodyguards following him everywhere.
incarcerated
01-30-2010, 02:37
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60Q3IW20100130
NATO troops clash with Afghan army
Sat Jan 30, 2010 3:12am EST
GHAZNI (Reuters) - NATO troops clashed with their Afghan army allies and called in air strikes, killing four Afghan soldiers and wounding six, Afghan provincial officials said Saturday.
Shahedullah Shahed, spokesman for the governor of Wardak province southwest of Kabul, said foreign forces and Afghan troops were both conducting operations Friday night in the province when they started shooting at each other.
"Four army soldiers were killed and six wounded when a foreign forces air strike hit their post," he said. "We don't know why it happened, but it is deeply regrettable."
He said the strike had targeted an Afghan Army outpost in the area that had been newly established.
The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force confirmed that an "incident" had taken place between Western and Afghan security forces, but declined to give further details.
"We are working with the Ministry of Defense to determine the facts of the incident," said U.S. Army Lieutenant Nico Melendez, a spokesman for the force.
incarcerated
01-31-2010, 00:59
NATO troops clash with Afghan army
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/31/world/asia/31afghan.html
4 Afghan Soldiers Are Killed by a Mistaken Airstrike
By DEXTER FILKINS
Published: January 30, 2010
KABUL, Afghanistan — In a confusing nighttime firefight, an American-Afghan force called in an airstrike on an Afghan Army checkpoint on Saturday, killing four Afghan soldiers and prompting a denunciation from the country’s Defense Ministry.
According to American and NATO officials, the firefight broke out at about 3 a.m. on a darkened road in the village of Shinz, west of Kabul. A team of American and Afghan soldiers approached an Afghan Army checkpoint and opened fire, an Afghan official said.
With the firefight under way, the American-Afghan team called in a helicopter gunship to attack the checkpoint. The aerial attack killed the four Afghan soldiers and wounded seven others....
incarcerated
02-03-2010, 02:59
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2010/02/predators_pound_terr.php
Predators pound terrorist camp in North Waziristan
By Bill RoggioFebruary 2, 2010 12:09 PM
A swarm of unmanned US aircraft pounded an al Qaeda camp today in the Taliban-controlled tribal agency of North Waziristan.
Five unmanned US strike aircraft, likely the Predators and Reapers, are reported to have fired 18 missiles at a camp and vehicles in the village of Datta Khel, a known al Qaeda and Taliban stronghold. This is the largest recorded US airstrike in Pakistan, indicating a top al Qaeda, Taliban, or Haqqani Network leader, or leaders, may have been present.
Seventeen terrorists are reported to have been killed in the missile attack. At this time, no senior al Qaeda or Taliban commanders have been reported killed.
The US has ramped up the attacks in Pakistan since the beginning of December, after a lull in strikes in October and November of 2009, when only four airstrikes were launched. There were eight strikes in December 2009, and 11 in January of this year. Today's strike is the 12th this year. [For up-to-date charts on the US air campaign in Pakistan, see: Charting the data for US airstrikes in Pakistan, 2004 - 2010.]
Today's airstrike is the 13th since Dec. 30, 2009, when a Jordanian al Qaeda operative and double agent carried out a suicide attack at Combat Outpost Chapman in Afghanistan's Khost province. The bomber killed seven CIA officials, including the station chief, and a Jordanian intelligence officer.
Since the Dec. 30 suicide attack, the US has been hunting Hakeemullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban. Hakeemullah appeared with the Jordanian suicide bomber on a martyrdom tape that was released shortly after the attack.
Hakeemullah was rumored to have been killed in a strike on Jan. 14, but the Taliban later released a tape to confirm he is alive. Rumors of his death have since resurfaced, as unnamed tribal elders claimed Hakeemullah died from wounds received in the strike and was buried in the Arakzai tribal agency....
incarcerated
03-01-2010, 00:26
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,587636,00.html
In Video, CIA Bomber Said Attack 'Wasn't Planned This Way'
Monday, March 01, 2010
The Jordanian triple agent behind the December suicide bombing that killed eight CIA agents in Afghanistan claims in a new video that he lured American and Jordanian intelligence officers into a fatal trap by sending them misleading information about terror targets, and videotapes he had made of senior Al Qaeda leaders.
Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a Jordanian doctor who killed seven CIA agents and his Jordanian handler in the attack also claims in the posthumous tape that he intended to kidnap only one Jordanian intelligence officer, but the unexpected opportunity to attack a large group of Americans was too good to pass up.
"It wasn't planned this way," al-Balawi says in an undated, 44-minute videotape released on Sunday by as-Sahab, the media arm of Al Qaeda. According to The Washington Post, al-Balawi attributes the change to "the stupidity of Jordanian intelligence and the stupidity of American intelligence" services that invited him to Afghanistan to help set up a strike against Al Qaeda targets.
The CIA had invited al-Balawi to their base in Khost, eastern Afghanistan, believing he was about to divulge the whereabouts of bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al- Zawahiri.The consequent attack was the deadliest blow against the CIA since 1983, and wiped out in one go most of their foremost experts on Al Qaeda.
The video, which has not yet been authenticated, is the second recorded statement to surface in which al-Balawi talks of his plan to penetrate the CIA's Forward Operating Base Chapman. In January al Qaeda claimed that in his will al-Balawi said he was avenging the death of Baitullah Mehsud, a Taliban commander killed last year in a CIA missile strike.
In the new video, al-Balawi describes his journey from doctor to suicide bomber, at one point brandishing what he says is a block of C4 military explosive that he planned to use in the attack.