CIA cites mistakes in deadly suicide bombing

WASHINGTON - The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) has concluded that it failed to fully vet a double agent who carried out an attack in Afghanistan in December and killed seven agency employees.

CIA Director Leon Panetta released a statement on the findings of a task force investigating the attack saying the agency encountered shortcomings in the area of communications, documentation and management oversight.

The assailant, Homam Balawi, was a Jordanian who was recruited by Jordanian intelligence because he was believed to have access to Al Qaeda.

Posing as an informant, Balawi was brought by a Jordanian intelligence officer to a CIA operating base in Khowst, where he detonated the explosives. The Jordanian officer was also killed in the Dec 30 attack.

“The task force determined that the Khowst assailant was not fully vetted and that sufficient security precautions were not taken,” Panetta said. “These missteps occurred because of shortcomings across several agency components in areas including communications, documentation, and management oversight.”

“Based on an exhaustive examination of the available information, we have a firm understanding of what our agency could have done better,” he said.