Report: Attacker was informant, not spy

AMMAN, Jordan, Jan. 6 (UPI) -- A Jordanian official has disputed reports that a suicide bomber who killed seven CIA employees in Afghanistan was a double agent.

Hammam Khalil al-Balawi was identified as the suicide attacker who killed the seven U.S. workers and a Jordanian intelligence officer last week at a U.S. base in Afghanistan's Kohst province.

While media reports said al-Balawi was a double agent working for Jordanian intelligence and the CIA, Al-Jazeera said Wednesday it learned the man was an informant.

The independent Middle Eastern news network reported a Jordanian official as saying "al-Balawi was an informant, and that he offered himself as an informant. He offered dangerous and important information which the authorities said they had to take seriously."

The man's status as an informer offered an "indirect denial" that he was recruited by the CIA or Jordanian intelligence officials and was "only a trusted source who went onto the base without inspection," the official said.