CIA base attacked in Kabul; 1 American killed

In a rare and lethal security breach at the CIA’s main base in Afghanistan’s capital, a local employee shot and killed one U.S. citizen and wounded another, American and Afghan officials said Monday.

It was the second attack in less than two weeks on a U.S. Embassy installation in Kabul.

The Afghan assailant was also killed in the firefight, which broke out late Sunday, the embassy said in a statement. U.S. officials did not dispute reports that the American killed was a CIA contractor, but provided no other details. It would be unusual for anyone not closely associated with the agency to be inside the heavily fortified base late at night. The NATO force said they were not members of the military.

The compound-within-a-compound where the shooting took place — close to the Afghan presidential palace and the embassy — has been described by former intelligence officials as the CIA’s main headquarters in the capital. The embassy referred to the site only as an “annex” of the mission. Worldwide, it is common practice for the CIA to base itself on embassy property.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility from the Taliban movement, which in the past has frequently managed to infiltrate Afghan army and police units with sleeper agents who then turn their guns on Westerners. The embassy said in a statement that the motive for the shooting was under investigation.

If the U.S. citizen who was killed is confirmed to be a CIA worker, it would be the first such known fatality since December 2009, when a suicide bomber — who U.S. officials had thought was a high-level informant — was escorted onto a CIA base in Khowst province to meet with agency staffers. Seven CIA workers were killed in that blast, considered one of the most serious intelligence debacles of the Afghan war.

Sunday’s attack came amid escalating security jitters in the Afghan capital. On Sept. 13, a squad of insurgents seized an unfinished high-rise structure a short distance from the embassy and used it to mount a 20-hour siege on the diplomatic compound and the adjoining headquarters of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s International Security Assistance Force.

A week later, the Afghan government’s chief peace negotiator, Burhanuddin Rabbani, was killed by a suicide bomber posing as a Taliban peace envoy. That attack took place in Rabbani’s home a few blocks from the embassy.

laura.king@latimes.com