Eight CIA Agents Reportedly Killed in Afghanistan

Eight CIA officers died after a suicide bomber set off an explosive vest at the Forward Operating Base Chapman in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday, marking the deadliest attack on U.S. intelligence officials since the early ’80s, according to the Los Angeles Times. That same day, a Canadian journalist, Michelle Lang of the Calgary Herald, was killed along with four Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province, according to press reports.

Los Angeles Times:

The attack took place at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khowst province, an area near the border with Pakistan that is a hotbed of insurgent activity. It also injured an undisclosed number of civilians, the officials said. No military personnel from U.S. or North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces were killed or injured, they said.

A U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the CIA had a major presence at the base, in part because of the strategic location. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in a message posted early Thursday on its Pashtu-language website.

The casualties highlight the increasingly important role the CIA is playing in Afghanistan, and come as the United States is embarking on a major buildup of its civilian workforce that parallels an increase in troop strength.

[...] A former U.S. intelligence official knowledgeable about Wednesday’s bombing said it had killed more CIA personnel than any attack since the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut in 1983. Before Wednesday’s attack, four CIA operatives had been killed in Afghanistan, the former official said.

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