Of a three-edged deceit

On December 30, 2009, Dr Humam Khalil Al Balawi, a 32-year-old Jordanian triple agent, detonated his powerful explosive vest at the CIA operations base in Khost, Afghanistan.

The spectacular suicide operation killed him, along with his handler, an allegedly unsuspecting member of the Jordanian royal family, Ali Bin Zeid, four CIA officers and their three contracted bodyguards. What appeared to be a relatively risk-free plan turned into a diabolical nightmare for Washington and Amman — but a highly successful Al Qaida counter-intelligence manoeuvre.

Joby Warrick, a Pulitzer Prize-winning national security reporter for The Washington Post, recounts the triple agent's vengeful plot and adds details to a narrative that reads like a spy novel. Although the real story may never be known, there are sufficient hints in this highly readable book on a fascinating aspect of how the Jordanian Mukhabarat (General Intelligence Bureau) recruited Al Balawi in the first place and how the CIA was reeled into the ghastly stratagem.

Even if Warrick raises key questions on the relationships between the two intelligence services and insinuates a level of negligence from both, most of those involved in the decision-making process were apparently eager to embark on the dangerous mission to penetrate Al Qaida, identify the whereabouts of key leaders and eliminate them. The author does not dwell on this fact, but few apparently wondered whether their rising star might actually turn against them.

Al Balawi, a son of Palestinian refugees who graduated "with top honours and a 97 per cent grade point average", won a "college scholarship from the Jordanian government" and was "fluent in English" (page 37). He studied Medicine at the University of Istanbul, graduated within six years and returned to Amman with a Turkish wife.

A quiet and unassuming paediatrician who devoted his life to neglected exiles rather than set up a money-generating practice, Al Balawi looked after mothers and young children at the Marka Camp, established after the 1967 exodus.

Imbued with outrage at conditions all around him, the physician turned towards radical ideas and, starting in 2007, wrote an internet blog under the pseudonym Abu Dujana Al Khorasani.

Warrick writes that Al Balawi became a "cyberwarrior for Islam and scourge of the Americans and their Arab lackeys around the world" (page 32), without venturing as to the reason(s) why. Remarkably, Al Khorasani "raged against all the usual targets — Israel, the West, and US-friendly Arab governments — but his writings also reflected an understanding of Western culture and a knack for appealing to younger Muslims who grew up with instant messaging and social networks".

When the American National Security Agency (NSA) identified Al Khorasani and coordinated with the Jordanian Mukhabarat to identify his true identity, Amman assigned Captain Ali Bin Zeid, a promising counter-intelligence officer related to the monarch, to recruit the paediatrician. After harsh interrogations, Al Balawi revealed the names of several fellow bloggers but backtracked from previous extremism, stating: "in his heart of hearts, he opposed terrorism in all its forms" (page 51).

The "reformed" Islamist thus earned the trust of his Jordanian contact who concluded that a well-placed mole deep within Al Qaida could advance his career. Likewise, CIA officers were eager to show results after the hunt for Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al Zawahiri came up short.

Because of his medical credentials, everyone concluded that he would be the best candidate to deploy for the dangerous mission. It apparently worked, as Al Balawi travelled to Pakistan's tribal regions and eventually hooked up with senior Al Qaida officials.

Warrick offers compelling tales that keep the reader spellbound. What the Jordanians and Americans expected and how they actually went about it at so many levels within their respective bureaucracies are truly the outstanding parts of this study.

Even if few entertained the potential for deceit and disaster, most were anxious to show results through a major coup. All were impatient to meet their "recruit" for debriefing and, more important, to train their "asset" against Al Qaida.

Since so little was known of the inner workings of Al Qaida, part of the naiveté was understandable, though Warrick is flabbergasted that neither the Jordanians nor the Americans appreciated Al Balawi's commitments. To be sure, warning signs did pop up once in a while but it seemed few were interested.

Warrick quotes former CIA director Leon Panetta after the Abbotabad, Pakistan, assault that killed Osama Bin Laden on May 2 this year: "Our heroes at Khost are with us, in memory and spirit, at this joyful moment" (page 209).

Panetta had the CIA officers and their bodyguards in mind, though one doubted that he included the Jordanian official. Although one did not expect him to have anything good to say about Al Balawi, one wondered whether anyone thought about his family or of Karma Camp dwellers.

Dr Joseph A. Kéchichian is the author of the forthcoming Legal and Political Reforms in Saudi Arabia (2012).

The Triple Agent: The al-Qaeda Mole Who Infiltrated the CIA By Joby Warrick, Doubleday, 244 pages, $26.95