The US Central Intelligence Agency has admitted that one of its informers who killed seven CIA officers in southeast Afghanistan, last year, had not been fully vetted by the organisation.
An internal investigation lists a series of breakdowns that led up to the incident in which the informer detonated a suicide bomb at a base in Khost province on 30 December 2009.
The mistakes included failing to act on warnings from Jordanian intelligence, a month before the attack, that the informer might be a double-agent working for al-Qaeda.
The information was not passed on by the CIA in Jordan.
The report also identified security failings and a lack of leadership at the Afghan base.
An internal CIA task force investigating the incident concluded that the ‘assailant was not fully vetted and that sufficient security precautions were not taken,’ CIA Director Leon Panetta said in a statement to agency employees.
‘These missteps occurred because of shortcomings’ across the agency, including ‘management oversight,’ Mr Panetta said.
Only three weeks before the attack, a CIA officer received warnings from his Jordanian counterpart about the bomber, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, but chose not to inform his superiors, the New York Times reported, citing Mr Panetta.
The officer was apparently dismissive of the warning because he suspected the Jordanian intelligence officer who offered it was jealous of a colleague's close relationship with Mr Balawi, the New York Times reported Mr Panetta as saying.
The attack in Khost, near the Pakistan border, was the second deadliest single assault on the CIA in its history.
