The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is mourning the loss of seven employees in a suicide attack in Afghanistan, one of the deadliest blows ever for an agency increasingly on the frontlines of US wars.
The CIA lowered the flag to half-mast at its headquarters in the Washington suburbs, but did not release the names of the casualties who died cloaked in the same anonymity with which they lived.
"Your triumphs and even your names may be unknown to your fellow Americans, but your service is deeply appreciated," US President Barack Obama wrote in a letter to CIA employees.
Mr Obama said that since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the US, "the CIA has been tested as never before".
"Because of your service, plots have been disrupted, American lives have been saved and our allies and partners have been more secure," he said.
Mr Obama says stars will be added in their name to the 90 already on the Memorial Wall at CIA headquarters, honouring spies who have fallen in the line of duty.
Jack Rice, a former CIA officer in Afghanistan, says the attack will never be forgotten.
"The impact can be huge, not just in terms of the capabilities of these particular people, but in the relationships that they themselves have built," he said.
"You can't simply go pick up five or 10 more of these guys. They may be the best guys in the world at what they do and they're gone."
Bomber 'invited onto base'
While more than 500 US and coalition forces have died in Afghanistan this year, Wednesday's suicide attack showed a new level of sophistication for the Taliban, who infiltrated the very agency in charge of finding them.
The CIA said a Taliban bomber clad as an Afghan soldier managed to penetrate the defences of a forward base in Khost, a pivotal province near the Pakistan border, detonating an explosives belt in a room described as a gym.
The New York Times said CIA officers at the base recently had begun an aggressive campaign against a militant group run by Sirajuddin Haqqani.
Citing current and former intelligence officials, it said the early indications were that the bomber was brought onto the base as a possible informer and might not have been subjected to rigorous screening.
It was a devastating blow for the spy agency, the deadliest since a 1983 US embassy bombing in Beirut that killed eight CIA officers and decimated the agency's operations there.
US press reports said the seven dead included the base chief, a mother of three.
CIA director Leon Panetta says six others were wounded, their lives saved by US military doctors and nurses.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai "strongly condemned the terrorist attacks that killed foreign civilian and military personnel in the provinces of Khost and Kandahar".
The attack comes as the US increasingly relies on the CIA and other covert forces to pursue strategic goals.
CIA and special forces were at the forefront of the US invasion of Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks, paving the way to overthrow the Taliban's extremist regime.
More recently the CIA has been operating unmanned drones that target extremists in lawless areas of Pakistan.
Intelligence operatives are also seen as crucial in laying out the groundwork as Obama and NATO allies send in another 36,800 troops as part of a surge expected to last until late 2010.
-AFP
-ABC 2009
Hazara News Western Australia
www.hazarawa.blogspot.com
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