The Triple Agent: The Al-Qaeda Mole Who Infiltrated the CIA

Description

A stunning narrative account of the mysterious Jordanian who penetrated both the inner circle of al-Qaeda 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 base in Khost, Afghanistan, to greet a rising superspy: Khalil al-Balawi, a Jordanian double agent who had infiltrated the inner circle of al-Qaeda. For months, he had sent solid intelligence on Osama bin Laden's operations center and now promised to help the CIA destroy the terrorist network. 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 war against al-Qaeda. His account of the Khost attack exposes dangerous weak­nesses in an intelligence agency that...