Not breaking news

Well, the "base's female chief, three other CIA officials and three security guards" killed in the Khost suicide bombing might be a little bit of inaccurate reporting on my part and it would now appear that six CIA officials and two Jordanians were killed. One of the Jordanians was, of course, the suicide bomber and triple agent, Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi and the other? It seems that his name was Captain Sharif Ali bin Zeid and that he worked for the Jordanian General Intelligence Department (GID), which is also known as the Mukhabarat. The GID is regarded as being a highly professional organisation by the professionals and is often compared to Israel's Mossad.

Now, it would appear that there is increasing evidence that they do indeed cooperate very closely with the CIA, oh, surprise, surprise, and with a Jordanian official saying only yesterday that the Jordanian government had no connection to the bomber, being followed only hours later by news that the bomber Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi was in fact Captain Sharif Ali bin Zeid's very own agent, King Abdullah himself is now a trifle upset by "unprecedented public exposure of his country's role working with the CIA," with the 'Guardian' further maintaining: "The discreet relations between the CIA and Jordan are familiar to intelligence aficionados but were not widely known – until now."

Is this actually serious? Do they honestly believe that the relations between the CIA and the GID were so discreet that they were only known inside the intelligence community? Do they really believe that many of us don't suspect that the CIA has relations not only with the GDI but also with intelligence services in other so-called "moderate Arab states"? Yes, while King Abdullah might be a wee bit upset he can rest assured that the news of his country's cooperation with the CIA is hardly breaking news and believe me it is not going to come as a surprise to the "Arab Street".