CIA Officers Are Killed in Afghan Attack

Suicide Bombing Leaves 8 Americans Dead, Including Intelligence Personnel; NATO Denies Its Sunday Raid Hit Children

By ANAND GOPAL
WSJ

KABUL -- Eight Americans, including officers of the Central Intelligence Agency, were killed in a suicide attack on a U.S. compound in Afghanistan, current and former U.S. officials said, in what could be the biggest loss of American intelligence personnel since the war here began.

"There was some tremendous talent lost," a former intelligence official said.

A U.S. military spokesman said none of the dead in the attack on Forward Operating Base Chapman, a U.S. military installation in the southeastern province of Khost, were soldiers. Some of the deaths could be contractors or other civilians. If it turns out all eight deaths were CIA officers, it would be the equivalent of "Pearl Harbor for the agency," the former intelligence official said.

According to a military official who works on Afghan issues, Chapman has grown substantially in recent months and is a base for both military and intelligence operations. Because of its size, the officer said, the suicide bomber is likely to have been able to penetrate multiple layers of security before detonating the explosives.

(More here.)