8 US CIA Agents, 5 Canadians Killed in Afghanistan

Forward Operating Base "Gym" Actually a CIA Surveillance Center

More details have emerged in this morning’s perplexing story, in which a suicide bomber attacked what officials called a “gym” on a military base in Khost Province, killing eight Americans the military identified as “civilians.”

Now US officials admit that all eight Americans slain in the attack were actually CIA agents, adding a reason why the Haqqani network was so quickly blamed, as CIA drones have been bombing the Haqqanis in North Waziristan for over a year.

Moreover, the “gym” at the Forward Operating Base was actually being used as a CIA “operations and surveillance center,” explaining the conspicuous lack of military personnel harmed in the attack.

One former CIA official was quoted as saying the attack was “the nightmare we’ve been anticipating since we went into Afghanistan and Iraq,” adding that the CIA agents operating in the warzones often lack adequate protection.

Exactly how the bomber was able to infiltrate the base and reach a secret CIA facility was unclear, and some suggested that the attacker may have been affiliated with one of the Afghan groups working on the base.

In addition, five Canadians were killed on patrol in Kandahar Province. The five, four soldiers and an embedded reporter were killed when their armored vehicle hit a roadside bomb.

Finally, though details were not readily available, a Jordanian army captain was slain in Afghanistan, the first death among Jordan’s tiny Afghan contingent since the war began.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.