A suicide bomber killed eight Americans yesterday at a CIA base in Eastern Afghanistan. The Washington Post reports that most — if not all — of the victims were CIA employees or contractors. At least one Afghan also was killed, the Post said.
The Taliban have claimed responsibility for the attack in Khost, near the Pakistan border. The Post said the bombing is “believed to be the deadliest single attack on U.S. intelligence personnel in the eight-year-long war and one of the deadliest in the agency’s history.” In 1983, eight CIA officers were killed in a devastating truck bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut.
UPDATE: Apparently seven of the eight dead Americans are CIA officers, according to a memo from CIA Director Leon Panetta obtained by the Post.
