OPINION:
On Dec. 30, 2009, I happened to be in Moscow when jihadi website writer Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi blew himself up in a suicide attack on the Americans serving on a U.S. base in Khost, Afghanistan. The explosion killed seven of my CIA colleagues, the Afghan driver who brought al-Balawi to the base and al-Balawi’s handler, Jordanian Intelligence Officer Captain Sharif Ali bin Zeid.
The next day, mourning the loss of our officers, CIA Director Leon Panetta reminded the nation that “the men and women of the CIA put their lives at risk every day to protect this nation … the reality is that those who make a real difference often face real danger.”
I had never met any of the seven CIA officers who died: Khost base Chief Jennifer Matthews, Scott Roberson, Darren Lebonte, Elizabeth Hanson, Harold Brown, Dane Paresi and Jeremy Wise. But like so many of my CIA friends and colleagues, especially those of us who had served tours of duty in war zones, I reflected on their grieving families while lamenting that I should have been in Khost doing something to support this high threat meeting.
Al-Balawi had claimed to have sensitive information on Osama bin Laden’s deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri.
There is nothing more dangerous for CIA officers than conducting operational meetings with terrorist sources. Every source with whom CIA meets is only as good as the last meeting. Each successive operational meeting requires a fresh round of intense vetting, which must take into account the possibility that the source is no longer under CIA control.
In a worst-case scenario, the source might be secretly working for the very terrorist group on which he had been claiming to report to us in good faith. Al-Qaida and Tehrik-i-Taliban, the Pakistani branch of the Taliban later claimed responsibility for turning al-Balawi into a murderous double agent.
A year later, I traveled to Afghanistan and spent time at Khost base, where I received a detailed briefing on al-Balawi and the brilliant work of our courageous team serving on the front lines finding, fixing, and finishing the terrorists who were still plotting against our homeland.
While standing where al-Balawi’s suicide terrorist attack took place, my mind flashed back to Matthews and her band of heroes, how in the blink of an eye, their excitement and high expectations for what they believed would be one of the most historically consequential CIA counterterrorism source meetings, were obliterated when al-Balawi detonated his hidden explosive vest.
Mr. Panetta directed that our training division produce a case study about the Khost attack, including lessons learned designed to ensure we would improve our operational tradecraft.
Then serving as deputy of the CIA’s Near East Division responsible for the Middle East, South Asia, and North Africa, I was asked to assist one of our professional instructors with writing the case study and facilitating its presentation to the CIA workforce, from junior officers to outgoing chiefs of station.
Throughout that process, I could feel the presence of Matthews, one of the most insightful counterterrorism analysts in CIA history, who had presciently warned about al-Qaida’s looming threat long before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
I imagined what she and her deceased comrades would have told us as we sought to honor their memories with the most intellectually honest account of what had happened and unreserved discussion and debate about what we would need to do better in the future.
That’s why this sacred assignment was one of the most difficult and challenging of my career. Having immersed myself in the al-Balawi case including the sensitive reporting leading up to and including the suicide bombing, I knew Matthews would have wanted us to learn as much as we could, to stay after it, and keep taking the fight to the enemy.
While grieving for the loss of our fallen colleagues, we incorporated those valuable lessons learned into countless high-threat counterterrorism operations in the immortal CIA tradition of transferring our experience gained from running operations in the overseas field to the school house.
Like trained sniper sharpshooters, CIA officers who followed in the hallowed footsteps of our fallen Khost base officers never took their sites off of Zawahiri, who was killed in Kabul, Afghanistan, in a drone strike on July 31, 2022.
Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote that “life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.”
And therein lies the gateway for overcoming adversity, which demands arduous and forthright introspection before tragedy can become a springboard for success.
• Daniel N. Hoffman is a retired clandestine services officer and former chief of station with the Central Intelligence Agency. His combined 30 years of government service included high-level overseas and domestic positions at the CIA. He has been a Fox News contributor since May 2018. He can be reached at danielhoffman@yahoo.com.
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