Espionage Files: Pakistani Spies Behind the 2009 FOB Chapman Attack?

Anybody who has done any amount of serious reading about 9/11 knows that Pakistan is an ally of the U.S. in name only; they have been supplying the Taliban with intel and arms for decades and indeed did support Bin Laden and his ilk during the early parts of the War in Afghanistan in 2003 and 2004, most likely assisting in coordinating his escape from Tora Bora.

The Book The Triple Agent by Joby Warrick is an excellent read on the subject of Balawi and how he duped the CIA. -SF

Two recently declassified United States government documents suggest that Pakistani intelligence officers may have been behind a suicide attack that killed seven employees of the Central Intelligence Agency in Afghanistan. The attack took place at the Forward Operating Base Chapman, a US military outpost in Khost, Afghanistan. It was carried out by Humam al-Balawi, a Jordanian doctor who posed as a disillusioned member of al-Qaeda and had convinced his CIA handlers that he could lead them to the whereabouts of al-Qaeda’s deputy Emir, Ayman al-Zawahiri. During a scheduled visit to FOB Chapman on December 30, 2009, al-Balawi detonated a suicide vest, instantly killing himself and nine other people, including a Jordanian intelligence officer and seven CIA employees. The bloody incident, which marked the most lethal attack against the CIA in nearly three decades, was widely blamed on al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban.

However, a set of newly released US State Department cables seem to suggest that Pakistani intelligence may have been behind the attack. The documents were released by George Washington University’s National Security Archive through a Freedom of Information Act request. One document, dated January 11, 2010, discusses the FOB Chapman attack in association with the Haqqani network, a Taliban-aligned Pashtun militant group that operates in Afghanistan but is headquartered in Pakistan. Western security observers have long considered the Haqqani network to be a paramilitary arm of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate. The January 11 State Department cable suggests that senior Haqqani network operatives met with their ISI handlers at least twice in the weeks prior to the FOB Chapman attack. Another cable, dated February 6, 2010, suggests that the ISI gave the Haqqani operatives $200,000 to step up attacks against Western forces in Afghanistan. A specific order was given at the meeting to carry out “the attack on Chapman [and] to enable a suicide mission by an unnamed Jordanian national”, presumably al-Balawi.

But an unnamed US intelligence official, who read the declassified documents, told the Associated Press news agency that the documents were “information report[s], not finally evaluated intelligence”. The material was thus “raw, unverified and uncorroborated”, said the official, and clashed with the broad consensus in the US Intelligence Community, which was that the attack was planned by al-Qaeda, not by the Haqqani network. The Associated Press contacted the Pakistani embassy in Washington, DC, about the National Security Archive revelations, but received no response.

Read the Original Article at Intel News

Espionage Files: Pakistani Intelligence Possibly Financed 2009 CIA Outpost Bombing

Pakistan’s powerful spy agency may have provided the funding for a deadly 2009 suicide attack on a CIA base in Afghanistan that ranks as one of the deadliest days in the agency’s history, according to a newly declassified State Department cable.

The heavily redacted cable, sent about two weeks after the attack on Dec. 30, 2009, reports on a meeting between operatives belonging to the Haqqani network, a highly capable al Qaeda-linked terror group, and unidentified officers with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence. According to the cable, which was released Wednesday, the ISI was suspected of giving the Haqqani network $200,000 to “enable” the attack on Forward Operating Base Chapman in Afghanistan’s Khost province.

The Chapman attack killed seven CIA officers and a Jordanian intelligence operative. It was carried out by a double agent, a Jordanian named Hammam Khalil Mohammed, who was invited onto the base to help the agency track down senior al Qaeda operatives. When he blew himself up during a meeting with senior CIA officials responsible for hunting al Qaeda, he greatly hindered Langley’s effort to dismantle the terror network.

While Pakistan’s ISI has a well-known record of supporting Islamist militant groups, its funding of the Chapman attack remains unconfirmed. The cable notes that it is an “information report” and “not finally evaluated intelligence.” The CIA did not answer questions Wednesday about the report’s veracity, or whether stronger intelligence proves that the ISI funded the Chapman bombing.

The National Security Archive at George Washington University published the cable, which was part of a trove of documents received under a Freedom of Information Act request.

Another State Department cable, also published Wednesday, reported that leaders of the Haqqani network were suspected of meeting monthly with the ISI in Islamabad as of late December 2009 — around the time of the Chapman bombing. The ISI provided the Haqqani network during these meetings with an “unknown amount of funding” for “unspecified operations,” the cable reported.

In December 2009, the ISI and Haqqani network met twice, according to thatcable. During the first meeting, they “discussed funding for operations” in Khost province. During the second, ISI provided “direction to the Haqqanis to expedite attack preparations and lethality in Afghanistan.”

Other documents published by the National Security Archive give new insights into the Haqqani funding sources.

The ISI has a long history of playing both sides in America’s long war against radical Islamist groups in the tribal areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Anticipating an eventual American withdrawal from Afghanistan, Islamabad has cultivated close ties with Afghan militants, providing them with funds and arms.

Pakistani intelligence officials believe their relationship with Afghan militants, such as the Haqqani network and the Afghan Taliban, provides Islamabad with a decisive advantage in its contest with India, Pakistan’s historic enemy, for influence in Afghanistan.

At the same time, Pakistan has accepted billions of dollars in military and humanitarian aid from the United States after helping Washington combat Islamist terror groups following the 9/11 terror attacks.

Pakistani armed forces are carrying out an offensive in the country’s tribal areas against the Pakistani Taliban, which has been responsible for a spate of recent deadly bombings. Just last month, a splinter group of the Pakistani Taliban killed more than 70 people in an Easter bombing targeting Christians celebrating in Lahore.

Read the Original Article at Foreign Policy