Annotation A stunning narrative account of the mysterious Jordanian who penetrated both the inner circle of alQaeda and the highest reaches of the CIA, with a devastating impact on the war on terror. In December 2009, a group of the CIA’s top terrorist hunters gathered at a secret base in Khost, Afghanistan, to greet a rising superspy: Humam Khalil al- Balawi, a Jordanian double-agent who infiltrated the upper ranks of alQaeda. For months, he had sent shocking revelations from inside the terrorist network and now promised to help the CIA assassinate Osama bin Laden’s top deputy. Instead, as he stepped from his car, he detonated a thirty-pound bomb strapped to his chest, instantly killing seven CIA operatives, the agency’s worst loss of life in decades. In The Triple Agent, Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Joby Warrick takes us deep inside the CIA’s secret war against alQaeda, a war that pits robotic planes and laser-guided missiles against a cunning enemy intent on unleashing carnage in American cities. Flitting precariously between the two sides was Balawi, a young man with extraordinary gifts who managed to win the confidence of hardened terrorists as well as veteran spymasters. With his breathtaking accounts from inside alQaeda’s lair, Balawi appeared poised to become America’s greatest double-agent in half a century-but he was not at all what he seemed. Combining the powerful momentum of Black Hawk Down with the institutional insight of Jane Mayer’s The Dark Side, Warrick takes the readers on a harrowing journey from the slums of Amman to the inner chambers of the White House in an untold true story of miscalculation, deception, and revenge. AUTHOR’S NOTE LIST OF PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS MAPS PROLOGUE 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. EPILOGUE ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A NOTE ON SOURCES NOTES ABOUT THE AUTHOR AUTHOR’S NOTE Quotations in this book that are designated by quotation marks are the recollections of individuals who heard the words as they were spoken. Italics are used in cases in which a source could not recall the precise language or when a source relayed conversation or thoughts that were shared with him by a participant in the events described. LIST OF PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS The White House President Barack Obama James L. Jones, national security adviser John Brennan, chief counterterrorism adviser to the president Rahm Emanuel, White House chief of staff Central Intelligence Agency Headquarters, Langley, Virginia Michael V. Hayden, CIA director, May 2006 to February 2009 Leon Panetta, CIA director, February 2009 to June 2011 Stephen Kappes, CIA deputy director Dennis C. Blair, director of national intelligence Amman, Jordan Darren LaBonte, CIA case officer, Amman station, CIA station chief, Amman station (identity classified; name withheld) Ali bin Zeid, captain, Jordanian General Intelligence Department (GID), aka the Mukhabarat Ali Burjak, aka Red Ali, Mukhabarat counterterrorism chief, bin Zeid’s boss Humam Khalil al-Balawi, physician and blogger Khalil al-Balawi, Humam’s father Defne Bayrak, Humam’s wife In Afghanistan Jennifer Matthews, CIA base chief, Forward Operating Base Chapman (“Khost”) Harold Brown Jr., CIA case officer, Khost Scott Roberson, CIA security chief, Khost Dane Paresi, security contractor, Xe Services LLC, aka Blackwater, Khost Jeremy Wise, security contractor, Xe Services LLC, aka Blackwater, Khost Arghawan, Afghan detail security chief, Khost (last name withheld), CIA deputy chief of station, Kabul station (identity classified; name withheld) Elizabeth Hanson, targeter, Kabul station AlQaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan Osama bin Laden, alQaeda founder and leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, alQaeda’s No. 2 commander, deputy to Osama bin Laden Osama al-Kini (given name Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam), senior alQaeda commander for Pakistan Abdullah Said al-Libi, an alQaeda operations chief, leader of alQaeda’s “Shadow Army” in Pakistan Sheikh Saeed al-Masri (given name Mustafa Ahmed Muhammad Uthman Abu al-Yazid), alQaeda’s No. 3 commander Baitullah Mehsud, leader of Pakistani Taliban alliance, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Hakimullah Mehsud, deputy TTP leader, cousin to Baitullah Mehsud Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, alQaeda senior leader and Islamic scholar Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (given name Ahmad Fadeel al-Nazal al-Khalayleh), Jordanian-born leader of alQaeda in Iraq, killed in U.S. missile strike in 2006 Abu Zubaida (given name Zayn al-Abidin Muhammed Hussein), first “high-value” terrorist operative captured by the CIA after the attacks of September 11, 2001, and the first to be subjected to waterboarding MAPS