Attack Against C.I.A. Agents Highlights Intelligence Efforts in War on Terror

An intelligence officer from the Middle Eastern country of Jordan, a member of the royal family working with the C.I.A., was also killed.

The bomber, a 32-year-old Jordanian doctor, had reportedly been recruited Jordani to supply information about Ayman al-Zawahiri, the number two most wanted terrorist after Osama bin Laden.

"He became, it seems, a triple agent… somehow, al-Qaida flipped him back, and sent him into this camp," Washington Post reporter David Ignatius told the NewsHour.

Following the killings, al-Qaida in Afghanistan issued a statement praising the attack, calling it revenge for the C.I.A.'s recent killings of a number of top militant leaders.

This is a big blow to the clandestine agency, which says it has only lost 90 members in the line of duty since it's founding in 1947.

The C.I.A. took an active role in world affairs

	The Bay of Pigs invasion was a failed attempt to invade Cuba using C.I.A.-trained Cuban exiles.

The C.I.A., Central Intelligence Agency, was formed in 1947 to replace the Office of Strategic Services, O.S.S, the main espionage organization in World War II.

Principally tasked to gather intelligence about foreign governments, corporations, and individuals, and to advise public policymakers, it also conducts covert paramilitary actions, and exerts foreign political influence through its Special Activities Division.

A clandestine organization at its core, the C.I.A. is often silent about its activities, but Pulitzer Prize winning author, Tim Weiner, shed light on the many escapades of the C.I.A. in his National Book Award Winning account, The Legacy of Ashes.

Weiner, and others, assert that the C.I.A. was responsible for the overthrow of the democratically elected Prime Minister of Iran, Mohammad Mosaddegh, in 1953, which instated the Shah.

The New York Times reported that the C.I.A. aided in the coup that took down elected President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán in Guatemala in 1954, and replaced him with a military junta. The agency was also involved with arming and training the Mujahedeen of Afghanistan to fight against the pro-Soviet forces, eventually giving rise to the Taliban.

Most memorably the C.I.A. was responsible for the failed invasion of Cuba during the Bay of Pigs in 1961. A year later, C.I.A intelligence informed President Kennedy of Soviet missiles on Cuban soil during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Changes at the C.I.A.

	Leon Panetta is the current Director of the C.I.A.

In 2004, following a report that looked at intelligence failures leading up to 9/11, Congress reorganized the nation's intelligence services creating a new post, director of national intelligence, who oversees the C.I.A. and other intelligence groups.

In 2008 and 2009 the C.I.A. was criticized for torturing terrorism suspects and operating secret prisons. In response, the Obama White House called for an end to torture and ordered investigations into C.I.A tactics.

But the Khost bombing shows that the C.I.A. still plays a role in military operations. President Obama said that the members on the base "served on the front lines in directly confronting the dangers of the 21st century."

Attack may send more agents out into the field

	Many Americans no longer think that the Afghan war is worth the investment of American lives.

Analysts say the attack may change the way business is done in Afghanistan, but it won't deter the mission.

"Typically, in a spy novel and in real life, you meet agents in safe houses. You don't meet them in embassies or in military bases, where you're vulnerable, where they can see a lot of the people around you. It's just not secure to do that," explains Ignatius.

But because of hostile conditions in Afghanistan, agents stopped traveling outside the secure bases.

"People will now reexamine that and say, you know, it probably is important to get out because it's more secure…. But, otherwise, I think they are going to keep pushing. They think that their fight has been effective," he added.