Jordan emerges as key CIA counterterrorism ally | WaPo - Jan 4, 2010 |

U.S. sources said Sharif Ali bin Zeid was the Jordanian operative working closely with al-Balawi, who was from the same hometown as the onetime leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Jordanian and U.S. intelligence agencies apparently believed al-Balawi had been rehabilitated from his extremist views and were using him to hunt Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda's No. 2 figure, the former intelligence official said.

Former CIA official Robert Richer called the bombing the greatest loss of life for the agency since the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, which killed eight agents.

An American intelligence official vowed last week that the United States would avenge the attack.