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It was one of the darkest days in CIA history: seven operatives were killed after being lured into a death trap by a rogue informant. In the years since, memories of the 2009 disaster in eastern Afghanistan have helped reinvigorate the intelligence agency’s global hunt for an elusive terrorist believed to have played a key role in the officers’ deaths.
That terrorist was Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda leader killed Saturday in a CIA-led strike. Nothing in official US statements described Zawahiri’s death as payback for US losses in Khost, Afghanistan, some 12 years earlier. But many former and current intelligence officers say that’s exactly how it felt.
The CIA, as is its usual practice, has not publicly acknowledged involvement in the launch of the missile that struck Zawahiri as he stood on his balcony in an apartment building in Kabul, the Afghan capital. But since Monday, confirmation of the 71-year-old Egyptian’s death has sparked an emotional response at the agency’s headquarters in Langley, Va., as well as among former colleagues, friends and family members of those killed or wounded in 2009.
“It’s an incredibly personal moment,” said Mark Polimeropoulos, a former CIA operations officer who served with several of the five agency men and two women killed at Camp Chapman, a CIA base on the outskirts of Khost, from which the agency conducted covert missions against al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. In addition to the seven CIA officers, a senior Jordanian intelligence officer and an Afghan driver were also killed.
Polymeropoulos described the deaths at Camp Chapman as “the starkest example of the tragic costs of the fight against terrorism.”
A number of current and former CIA officials marked the news of Zawahiri’s death with social media posts paying tribute to the CIA and security team members who died in the Khost attack, the deadliest against the CIA since eight employees were killed in the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in Beirut.
“Just remember. They are heroes,” former CIA director and retired general Michael N. Hayden wrote in a post on Twitter. In an interview, Hayden recalled working with two of the slain officers, Host Base Chief Jennifer Matthews and Elizabeth Henson , and learned of their deaths while they were at CIA headquarters on the day of the attack.
“I went outside to my car and cried,” Hayden said.
CIA Director William J. Burns, in response to an inquiry from The Washington Post, would not comment on details of the operation against Zawahiri, but said the events were “deeply personal for the CIA.”
Zawahiri appeared on his balcony. The CIA was ready to kill him.
“In the pursuit of Ayman al-Zawahiri, a brutal attack claimed the lives of seven CIA operatives in Khost in 2009,” Burns said. “While terrorism remains a very real challenge, removing Zawahiri reduces that threat and offers some degree of justice.”
Zawahiri’s role in the astonishingly complex al-Qaeda operation against the CIA base was described in a 2011 book and also described in articles and essays about the attack. The key figure was a Jordanian national, Humam al-Balawi, a doctor who got into trouble in his home country for posting pro-al Qaeda messages on social media. After being interrogated by Jordan’s intelligence service, he is persuaded to become a counter-terrorism informant. Ballawi eventually agreed to travel to Pakistan to gather information that could assist the CIA in its search for Osama bin Laden and other senior al Qaeda and Taliban leaders.
After disappearing for months, Ballawi emerged in late 2009 with a startling claim: He had established high-level contacts in the al Qaeda militant community holed up in the lawless tribal region along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
As evidence, Ballawi began providing evidence of his interactions — including cell phone videos of senior al Qaeda leaders — to his Jordanian handlers, who passed the information on to the CIA. Jordan’s General Intelligence Directorate regularly works with its US counterparts in tracking and thwarting terrorist operations around the world, and the two sides discussed the Balawi case closely.
In late December 2009, the CIA was eager to meet with the Jordanian spy, sensing a potential breakthrough in the long-dormant hunt for bin Laden and other terrorist leaders behind the September 11, 2001 attacks. Seemingly reluctantly, Balawi agreed to a meeting at the base of CIA in Khost. Then, in a move that ensured an enthusiastic reception from the Americans, he brought out a particularly galling new detail: the doctor was providing medical care to Zawahiri, then Al Qaeda’s No. 2.
Balawi shared vague details about Zawahiri’s physical condition, including his various chronic illnesses and his scars from years of torture in Egyptian prisons. The details match what the CIA already knew about Zawahiri and appear to confirm that Balawi was indeed in close contact with the al Qaeda deputy.
The meeting was scheduled for December 30, 2009, with multiple CIA counterterrorism experts scheduled to attend. Balawi arrived by car, and because of the extreme sensitivity surrounding the meeting, the CIA delayed any physical searches of the informant until he was well inside the agency’s compound.
Balawi was indeed on a mission, but his allegiance was to al-Qaeda, not to Jordan or the CIA. Under his cloak he hid a bomb of high explosive C4. Once within striking distance of the CIA team, he detonated the device.
The attack prompted an extensive investigation and prompted numerous operational changes, including increased counterintelligence safeguards. Agency officials have not been able to determine the full extent of Zawahiri’s involvement in planning the 2009 attack, but at the very least he allowed himself to be the decoy for a sophisticated operation that allowed a suicide bomber to infiltrate an ultra-secure and top-secret facility at CIA, current and former officials said.
Zawahiri’s Path to Global Terrorist Leader
That’s why many in the CIA saw Zawahiri’s death as justice served after years of waiting. On Tuesday, a printed copy of a Washington Post article was placed at the grave of Matthews, the Khost base chief killed in 2009. “US Kills Al-Qaeda Leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul Drone Strike,” read the headline.
The photo was featured in a Twitter post on Tuesday by Christine Wood, a former CIA official who worked with Matthews.
“Rest in peace sister,” the tweet read.
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