From Nic Robertson, CNN Senior International Correspondent
Amman, Jordan (CNN) - In the murky world of spying, where choices are generally among shades of gray, success, by definition, goes unnoticed.
Failure, however, is catastrophic.
So how did a Jordanian doctor play double agent, outsmart his CIA handlers, and end up killing seven Americans and a Jordanian military officer at a remote base in Afghanistan?
"This is the biggest deception ever of intelligence agencies, whether CIA or Jordanian intelligence," said Hassan Hanieh, a former Islamic extremist who now studies jihadist movements. "From the beginning, he was deceiving them."
In a videotape released after the December 30 attack, the double agent, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, said his suicide bombing was retaliation for the death of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud. Mehsud was killed in a missile strike in August, an attack thought to have been carried out by an American drone aircraft.