Al Qaeda to avenge Taliban chief’s death ‘inside US’: CIA bomber

CAIRO - The death of a Pakistani Taliban chief would be avenged both “inside and outside the US”, according to the Al Qaeda bomber who killed seven officers of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in a Dec 30 attack in Afghanistan.

In an alleged video message aired Saturday on the Doha-based al-Jazeera news channel, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi said: “We will never forget the blood of our Emir Baitullah Mehsud.

“To retaliate for his death in and outside the US will remain an obligation on all exiles who were harboured by Baitullah Mehsud,” he added.

Baitullah Mehsud, the highest ranking leader of Al Qaeda ally the Taliban in Pakistan, was killed in August in a US missile attack in South Waziristan, a Pakistani area bordering Afghanistan.

The attack against a US intelligence base in Afghanistan left seven US CIA officers and a Jordanian intelligence officer dead. Al-Balawi was a “double agent” recruited by Jordanian intelligence services to act as an informant on the activities of the international terrorist network Al Qaeda.

“This is a message to the enemies of the Umma (Islamic nation), to the Jordanian intelligence and the CIA,” al-Balawi said in the video.

The attacker’s father, Khalil al-Balawi, confirmed on a report by the British broadcaster BBC in Jordan that the person speaking in the video was definitely his son.

The US IntelCenter, which specializes in analyzing Islamist websites, reported that the new Taliban chief in Pakistan, Hakimullah Mehsud, can be seen next to al-Balawi in the video.

Khalil al-Balawi held the “American oppression of Muslims in the world” responsible for the radicalization of his son. The attacker’s wife speaking to US broadcaster CNN stated that she was proud of her husband deed.

The attacker, a 36-year-old Jordanian doctor, arrested more than a year ago by Jordanian intelligence, was believed to have been reformed and sent off to Afghanistan and Pakistan to infiltrate Al Qaeda.

Western officials said he contacted his Jordanian handler and said he needed to meet urgently with the CIA team at the base in Khost province in eastern Afghanistan, where he detonated an explosive-laden vest.