More evidence damns Pakistan, and Blackwater, in CIA bombing

by Ahmar Mustikhan | January 8, 2010 at 02:51 pm

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The fingerprint of the type of explosive used in killing seven CIA personnel, including their No. 2, at the Chapman Forward Operating Base in Afghanistan leads to the headquarters of the infamous Inter Services Intelligence in neighboring Pakistan.

Early evidence in the December 30 bombing that killed seven CIA agents suggests a link to Pakistan, two senior Afghan sources, including an official at their spy agency, told The Daily Beast. The pair said that U.S. has already taken a chemical fingerprint of the bomb used by a Jordanian double agent in the attack, and that it matches an explosive type used by their Pakistan equivalents, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI.

At first the reports said the seven Americans who were debriefing the suicide bomber were all from the Central Intelligence Agency, but now reports have surfaced two of them belonged to the controversial intelligence contractor Blackwater.

But Schakowsky said the fact that two Blackwater personnel were in such close proximity to the December 30 suicide bomber--an alleged double agent, who was reportedly meeting with CIA agents including the agency's second-ranking officer in Afghanistan when he blew himself up--shows how "deeply enmeshed" Blackwater remains in sensitive CIA operations, including those CIA officials claim it no longer participates in, such as intelligence gathering and briefings with valuable agency assets. The two Blackwater men were reportedly in the room for the expected briefing by the double agent, Humam Khalil Muhammed Abu Mulal al-Balawi, who claimed to have recently met with Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri.