Quicklet on Joby Warrick's The Triple Agent: The al-Qaeda Mole Who Infiltrated the CIA

ABOUT THE BOOK

“You’ll treat me like a friend, right?”—Humam al-Balawi on the phone to his handler Ali bin Zeid before arriving at Camp Chapman

December 30, 2009 was one of the deadliest days in the history of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Seven CIA agents and a Jordanian Intelligence Officer were killed at Camp Chapman, the CIA’s forward operating base in Khost, Afghanistan, which bordered Pakistan’s tribal region. The individual responsible for the suicide bombing, Humam Khalil al-Balawi, was a trusted intelligence source that promised Washington access to the inner circle of al-Qaeda. Instead, al-Balawi delivered a devastating blow to the Global War on Terror and the intelligence-sharing network that drove it.

The Triple Agent is one of the first publications to provide a detailed account of the events that resulted in the Camp Chapman bombing. In a gripping narrative constructed through interviews with U.S. and Jordanian intelligence officials, the families of the victims, and the family of Humam al-Balawi, Joby Warrick recounts the combination of human and institutional factors that enabled a man loyal to Jihad to gain the trust of intelligence agencies and carry out a martyrdom operation at a secure CIA installation.

MEET THE AUTHOR

Abigail Adams is a freelance researcher and writer that has covered national security, middle eastern affairs and the financial industry. Her work has appeared in The Jerusalem Report, The American Chronicle and eHow. She holds a B.A. from UMASS Amherst and a Certificate in Counter-Terrorism from Henley-Putnam University.

EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK

Three months later, al-Balawi was sent on an all-expenses paid trip to Pakistan. His job was to provide bin Zeid with information that would enable the Mukhabarat and the CIA to track wanted terrorists in Pakistan’s tribal region. The information al-Balawi provided captured the attention of the highest echelons of Washington; President Barack Obama requested updates on the work of the informant.

Within months of arriving in Pakistan, al-Balawi had managed to gain the trust of the leading commanders of the Tehrik-i-Taliban, the alliance of Islamic militants in Pakistan’s tribal region, who introduced him to al-Qaeda’s inner circle. When al-Balawi sent bin Zeid a video of himself in the presence of al-Qaeda’s operational mastermind Ayman al-Zawahiri, Washington demanded a meeting with the Mukhabarat informant. Camp Chapman in Khost Afghanistan, within miles of the only open border crossing to Pakistan, was identified as the fateful location…

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