The Associated Press is reporting that it's heard from sources that the suicide bomber who killed seven Central Intelligence Agency employees in an attack Wednesday at a CIA base in Afghanistan's Khost province was invited onto the base and wasn't searched. It appears bomber was being cultivated as an informant.

From the AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Associated Press has learned that the suicide bomber who killed seven CIA employees at a remote outpost in southeastern Afghanistan had been invited onto the base and was not searched.

A former senior intelligence official says the man was being courted as an informant and that it was the first time he had been brought inside the camp.

The official says a senior and experienced CIA debriefer came from Kabul for the meeting, suggesting that the purpose of the meeting was to gain intelligence.

The former senior intelligence official and another former official with knowledge of the attack spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The CIA has declined to comment.

 

Given what we know about how al Qaeda and the Taliban operate, that they often will use plants to target their enemies, it's interesting to learn that the bomber wasn't searched.

For instance, when al Qaeda used a suicide bomber two days before 9/11 to kill Ahmad Shah Massoud, the anti-Taliban military commander beloved by many Afghans, they used a bomb hidden in a television camera carried by the bomber who posed as a cameraman conducting an interview.

Did the CIA not search Wednesday's suicide bomber because operatives were trying to establish trust with him? Or was it just an oversight that turned out to be a deadly mistake?