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Amman, Jan 2 (Petra) — His Majesty King Abdullah II, the Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces, Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah and His Royal Highness Crown Prince Hussein bin Abdullah were at the Queen Alia International Airport on Saturday to receive the body of Captain Sharif Ali bin Zeid Al Aun who was killed in Afghanistan on Wednesday.
Sharif Ali fell as he performed his humanitarian duty with the Jordanian contingent of the U.N. peacekeeping forces in Afghanistan.
(Getty Images)
His body was flown home today on board a Royal Air Force plane.
Their Majesties and the Crown Prince expressed their heart-felt condolences to the martyr’s family.
Jordan emerges as key CIA counterterrorism ally …
The suicide bomber who killed seven CIA agents in Afghanistan was a Jordanian informant, US media reports say. He is said to have been a doctor recruited by Jordan’s intelligence service to infiltrate al-Qaeda.
He is believed to have been working undercover in eastern Afghanistan for weeks before detonating a bomb at Forward Operating Base Chapman.
The Washington Post quotes two former US government officials as saying that the alleged bomber lured the CIA officers into a meeting with a promise of new information on al-Qaeda’s top leadership.
The reports have named him as Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a 36-year-old al-Qaeda sympathiser from Zarqa, Jordan (hometown of Al-Zarqawi), arrested by Jordanian intelligence over a year ago.
The CIA has declined to comment on the reports.
Changing sides
Jordanian intelligence believed they had brought Humam al-Balawi over to their side and sent him to Afghanistan to infiltrate al-Qaeda, US network NBC says. His specific mission was thought to be tracking down al-Qaeda’s number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
Zawahiri has emerged as Al Qaeda's strategic and operational planner (NY Daily News)
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."
