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A suicide bomber killed eight people today at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan’s Khost province. A Pentagon spokesman says the base, Forward Operating Base (FOB) Chapman, no longer houses U.S. military personnel — which has led to a lot of speculation that the base is used by intelligence agencies.
I would inject a few notes of caution here. First, the claim that the base is deserted comes from a single spokesman — and an unnamed spokesman, to boot. But a Defense Department source tells us that FOB Chapman was used by the Khost provincial reconstruction team (PRT) as recently as this summer. It’s unlikely that the Pentagon simply abandoned the base on such short notice.
Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said in a statement that an Afghan National Army officer wearing a suicide vest entered the base and blew himself up inside the gym. A U.S. official who was briefed on the blast also said it took place in the gym.
The U.S. official said eight American civilians and one Afghan were killed; it was not clear if the Afghan victim was military or civilian. Six Americans were wounded, the official said.
The CIA has not yet commented on or confirmed the deaths.
There was no independent confirmation that the bomber was a member of the Afghan military. Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi, spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Defense, said no Afghan National Army soldiers are at the base, named FOB Chapman.
Khost is the capital of Khost province, which borders Pakistan and is a Taliban stronghold.
The Washington Post is now calling Chapman a “CIA base,” on the basis of an unknown number of interviews with unnamed U.S. officials.
- The attack represented an audacious blow to intelligence operatives at the vanguard of U.S. counterterrorism operations in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, killing officials whose job involves plotting strikes against the Taliban, al-Qaeda and other extremist groups that are active on the frontier between the two nations. The facility that was targeted — Forward Operating Base Chapman — is in the eastern Afghan province of Khost, which borders North Waziristan, the Pakistani tribal area that is believed to be al-Qaeda’s home base.
“I know that the American people will appreciate their sacrifice. I pray that the government they serve does the same,” said the official,
Intelligence experts who have visited U.S. bases in the region say the CIA officers at Chapman would have focused mainly on recruiting local operatives and identifying targets.
(The Independent) – A suicide bomber penetrated a foreign army base in Afghanistan to kill eight US CIA employees yesterday, one of the spy agency’s largest death tolls, and a separate attack killed four Canadian troops and a journalist.
A “well-dressed” Afghan army official detonated a suicide vest at a meeting of CIA officials in southeastern Khost province, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters.
“This deadly attack was carried out by a valorous Afghan army member when the officials were busy gaining information about the mujahideen, in the (fitness) club,” he wrote in an email.
Afghan Suicide Bomber Killed C.I.A. Operatives
(NY Times) – The attack at the C.I.A. base, Forward Operating Base Chapman, in Khost Province appeared to be the single deadliest episode for the spy agency in the eight years since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. It also dealt a significant blow to the often insular, tight-knit organization, which has lost only 90 officers in the line of duty since its founding in 1947.
The attack occurred as the agency has steadily increased its presence in Afghanistan and Pakistan over the past year, sometimes sending operatives to remote bases instead of to heavily fortified embassies in Kabul and Islamabad, Pakistan.
In recent years, the C.I.A. has been at the forefront of American counterterrorism operations in South Asia, launching a steady barrage of drone attacks against Qaeda and Taliban operatives in the mountains along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.
There was a large al-Qaeda camp south of Khost until August 1998, when its inhabitants were forced to move into Pakistan after the United States, using cruise missiles, bombed the camp in response to the attacks on American embassies in East Africa, believed to have been planned by Al Qaeda.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
