Talk:Camp Chapman attack

I think it would be easier to make sense of the casualty section if it were done as a list. For example:

Eight people, among them at least six CIA officers, including the chief of the base, were killed and six others seriously wounded in the attack.^[1][2][3]

• CIA station chief described as a mother of three and had a history in counterterrorism dating back to the agency's Alec Station, which was created to monitor Osama bin Laden years before the September 11 attacks.^[4]
• A female CIA officer
• Arghawan, the base's security chief who was an Afghani.
• An American perimeter security guard
• Al Shareef Ali bin Zeid, a member of the Jordanian spy agency Dairat al-Mukhabarat al-Ammah^[2][5][6]
• Harold Brown, 37, a resident of Washington, D.C.
• Scott Roberson, 39 of Ohio, a CIA security officer, according to his sister,
• Jeremy Wise, 35 a former U.S. Navy SEAL and security contractor.^[7][6]

Citing the sensitivity of their mission, the CIA has not released the names of those killed in the attack, many of whom were seasoned hands in the agency's counterterrorism operations.^[8][9][10] All officers were working as undercover agents.^[4]

The operatives stationed at the base were responsible for intelligence collection on insurgents' networks in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, including the selection of al-Qaeda and Taliban target for drone aircraft strikes, and were also plotting missions to kill the networks' top leaders.^[11][8] CIA bases on the Afghan-Pakistan border gather intelligence in both countries and are in contact with local operatives.^[12] According to a former intelligence official, two of the officers killed in the attack were contractors for Xe, a private security company formerly known as Blackwater. The CIA considers contractors to be officers.^[13] The Wall Street Journal reports that only one private security contractor has been killed.^[1] As a result of the attack, the base was rendered inoperative until the CIA sends in a new team of officers.^[3]

Initially, eight U.S. citizens were believed to have died in the attack, and a U.S. defence official said that all of the dead would be civilians, not U.S. or NATO troops.^[13][14] Hours after the attack on the base, the official number of intelligence operatives killed in the bombing was revised, and instead of eight deaths, the CIA acknowledged only seven. The eight person killed turned out to be the officer of the Jordanian intelligence service. The death offered a rare glimpse of a U.S.-Jordanian partnership that is rarely acknowledged publicly, yet seen by U.S. officials as highly important for their counterterrorism strategy.^[15]

I think the individuals get lost in the the prose paragraphs. I think it would be easier to edit as details emerge.Geo8rge (talk) 05:53, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for the suggestion! I've already thought about inserting a list in the article, but I decided to wait until more information is available. In particular, it is important that we do not duplicate individuals, e.g. the perimeter security guard may well be one of those whose names are now known, and the eight person may not be identified in any way as of today.  Cs32en  14:46, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Some things in the article are woozily. Why should the attack be a sign for al-Qaedas not-weakness? Didn't attack the Taliban??? Edroeh (talk) 02:24, 6 January 2010 (UTC):Of course it should be: Didn't the Taliban attack??? Edroeh (talk) 02:38, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry that some parts of the article look confused. An official said the attack looked like Al Qaeda. Others opine that the attack coudn't have been carried out without the help of the Haqqani network. All other statements, as of this moment, seem to derive from these assessments. Whether they are right or wrong, commentators and CIA people have talked about Al Qaeda in connection with the event, and their comments seem to be notable. If you have any new sources, or anything that I have overlooked, please let me know!  Cs32en  03:22, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

The name of one of those killed can now be found on the internet. There appears to be little information about the person on the web, however.  Cs32en  06:08, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah I saw it, Dane Paresi. He was a security contractor just like Arghawan and Jeremi Wise. So that means that Scott Roberson was not a contractor even though he was a security guy. Roberson must have been a full-time security officer for the agency.UrukHaiLoR (talk) 06:22, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

This one was easy to find. However, I had already included the information about Dane Paresi when I wrote the sentences above.  Cs32en  14:17, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

I noted in the table that the two of the three contractors were Xe, maybe we should note what branches the others belonged to, since Brown's speciality was military intelligence he would have been probably National Clandestine Service and since Roberson was a security officer he would have been probably Special Activities Division. Any thoughts on this?

A source described by The Times as a former CIA bin Laden hunter reportedly said the CIA obtained one electronic intercept of a Pakistani army officer tipping the Haqqanis off to a raid and another in which a member of the Pakistani intelligence service says the "Haqqanis are our guys."

That would result in: "UPI reported that, according to The Times, a former CIA bin Laden hunter was said to have asserted that the CIA had obtained an electronic intercept from an unnamed Pakistani officer tipping the Haqqanis off..." All based on reliable sources, of course... ;-) Any takers?  Cs32en  21:24, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

...umm, not really unnamed   Cs32en  17:26, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Given the somewhat obscure statements from FBI officials ("still determining the components of the explosive", "shrapnel", "significant explosion", "entered by car"), is it possible that the explosives were attached to the car, rather than to the attacker. People involved may have acted under duress, and may have hoped to be able to escape the blast. Additional information (preferably from reliable sources) is welcome!  Cs32en  11:17, 7 January 2010(UTC)

I have not seen a source suggesting a car was involved at the time of the explosion.Geo8rge (talk) 02:36, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I think we can exclude the possibility that the car was used in the bombing itself (other than to bring the attacker on the base) now.  Cs32en  16:28, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The "triple agent" hypothesis seems increasingly dubious. If al-Balawi went to Afghanistan under the cover of treating wounded insurgents, that would not be useful cover for an al-Qaeda agent. So the CIA would have concluded that either he stopped working with al-Qaeda, or that al-Qaeda was aware or suspicious of his CIA contacts and removed him from the front line. In both cases, al-Balawi would have ceased to be a triple agent (in the first case, because he would no longer have been a double agent in the eyes of the CIA, in the second case, because the CIA would have believed that he was compromised, thus they would certainly have searched him). It's more likely that he was pressured into cooperating with the Jordanian agency and, at one point, decided to turn against the Jordanian agency and the CIA. That would make him either a "simple" agent who turned against the CIA, or, in case he was recruited as an agent by al-Qaeda or Haqqani after turning against the CIA, a double agent. Any further information on this in reliable sources?  Cs32en  18:15, 7 January 2010 (UTC)

Up until this attack I had never seen the term triple agent, I think it first appeared in the British press, so it could be a common British term. While I understand your points a main stream source disputing triple agent would be needed. Triple agent seems to fit as double agent does not, and from the point of view of the CIA he was a triple agent as they did not know otherwise. If you have a source disputing triple agent then post it for discussion, but right now the main stream media seems to accept triple agent.Geo8rge (talk) 02:34, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

A completely different version of events is being put forward by senior intelligence analyst Christopher Story on his website worldreports.org. According to Story the dead operatives are synonymous with the perpetrators of the killing of eight schoolchildren shortly preceding the Camp Champman attack, an incident which caused an uproar in Afghanistan and the Afghan Security Council to demand that the US hand over the perpetrators. According to Story, that attack (killing the schoolchildren) was implemented to derail the ongoing unwinding by international law enforcement personnel of 'Operation Stillpoint' which, again according to Story, is a financial fraud which has been perpetrated by three US presidents for more than a decade (on the scale of $47 Trillion), As no mainstream media has so far covered this alleged story I can only inform other editors that if true, Operation Stillpoint is undoubtedly the largest financial fraud in history. Extensive details are however presented on worldreports.org. __meco (talk) 12:08, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

A better source than a blog would be needed. I think the suicide bombing preparation took more time than that, the decision to attack the base seems to be founded in opportunity, it would have gone off irrespective of other activity in the world. They had an opportunity that would not be there in the future and they took advantage of it. Geo8rge (talk) 02:28, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Of course. If/when this story breaks in the mainstream it will explode violently. We should wait for that. __meco (talk) 10:19, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

In the Jordanian reaction section, it seems like it is being stressed that al-Balawi was a GID contact and an informant, not a double agent. And there's no CIA claim to counter that. The sources quoted in that section use phrasing similar to 'suicide bomber was not a double agent after all', indicating that it's not just a Jordanian reaction, but a "new" development of facts.

AFAIK, the CIA said nothing to counter that; so its only the Jordanians' word vs. Taliban's word. It seems more logical to credit the legitimate governmental organization's word over that of an organization that actually might NEED to twist facts to appear more heroic. What do you think? --Eshcorp (talk) 09:08, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

The British press is using the term triple agent. Recent wall street journal:The Meaning of al Qaeda's Double Agent. I do not agree that al-Balawi was an informat which implies more informal relationship than someone who is meeting with the CIA #2(the unidentified woman agent). I imagine that persons involved with US gov Intelligence monitor this wp page, perhaps they can let the press know about the correct terminology, or issue an official CIA statement about what happened.Geo8rge (talk) 16:42, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

These are two separate issue that have not yet been fully clarified. (1) Was al-Balawi an agent, or was he an informant? (2) Was Balawa a double agent, or was he a triple agent? We will have to wait for more information in reliable sources to emerge, or a convergence of the reports and the language used in reliable sources.  Cs32en  16:31, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud is responsible according to this http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/10/world/middleeast/10balawi.html?hp article. This article suggests that the Haqquani Network was involved. They have a video with the bomber and Mehsud the leader of the group. Please revise this article and remove all mentions of the Haqquani network who had nothing to do with this attack according to the new information. Any body else? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 65.24.133.184 (talk) 22:52, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

I'll work on the issue later on. There are also sources that say that Mehsud and Haqqani would have cooperated in the preparation of the attack. If you have well-sourced information, you can always add content to the article. Please indicate the source of the information, e.g. the newspaper article. Further information on how sources are being used on Wikipedia in on Wikipedia:Verifiability and Wikipedia:Reliable sources. In this case, it's certainly best to read multiple sources (more than 3), as the information on some aspects of the event differs substantially.  Cs32en  07:06, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

We should seriously think of removing the politician's and bureaucrat's "oh, this is a sad day" comments. Gut most of the reactions section. This article should be about the attack, not some lame political press release comments. Later, when more information comes in, we should include the actual retaliation done and how many Taliban heads were cut off. JB50000 (talk) 06:34, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The Times has published a rather detailed account of the attack. Unfortunately, the text in written in a very journalistic, i.e. not encyclopedic language, so major rewording is necessary, in my view. But this is a great source for further expansion of the article. As for the comments, I think they represent the sometimes quite varied opinions about the event, so I don't think a major change is needed there. But adding or removing statements, to better reflect the gist of the ongoing public discussion, might be useful.  Cs32en  07:11, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Reconstructing the CIA bombing

Also Leon Panetta made a statement about the attack. CIA director defends agency against criticismGeo8rge (talk) 21:03, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Both references/links are included in the article.  Cs32en  16:33, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Phiont, I have not written that the security director would have been killed by the attacker, but that he was killed in the attack. In fact, if the attack would not have taken place, he would not have been killed. So it's quite logical to count the security director among those who have been killed in the attack. Please let me know what you think about this. (Phiont's edit)  Cs32en  19:38, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

It's a good question, isn't it, especially for those with an interest in chaos theory. Could the hypothetical death of a child run over by an ambulance rushing to Camp Chapman also have been attributed to the attack? How about the heart attack death of the child's father on hearing of his little one's demise? Indeed, where does one draw the line? When the lead section of an article on a bomb attack lists casualties without going into detail about how each got hurt/killed then the reader will most likely disregard chaos theory and automatically assume that each was struck down by the bomb blast, shrapnel, or at very least flying and falling debris. Adding someone to that list who was gunned down in a friendly fire incident subsequent to the bombing without mention of that circumstance therefore results in a misunderstanding. I feel the best way to avoid such misunderstanding is either to include some context that will distinguish such peripheral casualties from those victims actually struck down by the bomb or leave such indirect deaths out of the lead section entirely.--Phiont (talk) 22:43, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I'd say it wasn't a "subsequent incident", but that it was part of the incident that started with the bomb blast. Those actions that happened immediately during and after the blast reflect reactions on an individual basis, not tactical, strategic, or political decisions. That is what distinguished the death of the security director, a death which would not have occured if there would have been no attack, from, e.g. the U.S. drone strikes that took place in the days after the attack, which are sometimes interpreted as retaliation for the bombing. Maybe some other editors will comment on the issue, or a request for comment might help us to find a consensus on this part of the article.  Cs32en  23:00, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

To delve briefly into your counter-example, if the security director had been immediately killed by a US soldier commanding a drone instead of holding a pistol would you still have attributed his death to the suicide bombing, even though it would have resulted from so-called "tactical, strategic, or political decisions" however erroneous? Of course not. I'm only trying to reduce the potential for misunderstanding when readers of the lead section see a list of attack casualties without knowing that one of them was actually caused by subsequent friendly fire. And if you don't consider the friendly fire incident to be subsequent to the "attack" then how long after the bomber disintegrated did his attack continue? --Phiont (talk) 00:21, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

The difference between the shooting of the security director and the (hypothetical) drone attack would be that the shooting was (a) an immediate reaction and (b) intended to reduce the impact of the attack, i.e. defensive. In war-related incidents, offensive action on the part of one side, and defensive action on the part of the other side occur, and both are part of the incident. An offensive action by the party that has been attacked would not usually be considered part of the incident, unless you have an "incident" that would be called "War in Afghanistan", which would cover multiple smaller incidents.

Most important is probably how reliable sources describe the death of the security director:

• ABC: "Arghawan also died in the attack."
• Times of India: "there was a suicide blast that killed eight people, including Arghawan"

  Cs32en  08:34, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

On 3 Jan., the Times of India said the blast killed Arghawan. On 10 Jan., the Times of London said Arghawan "survived the initial blast." One of those two versions is clearly unreliable. Please explain why you have chosen to discard the Times of London version in favour of the Times of India version published a week earlier? The ABC link you posted as an example of a reliable source appears to be even older. --Phiont (talk) 14:14, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I know that not all the reports in reliable sources are correct. The Times, however, does not refer to "the attack" but to "Balawi". The article reads: "According to the guard, it was then that Balawi detonated his bomb, killing eight and injuring six." I don't think the specific circumstances of Arghawan's death are important enough for the lead. But if we want to include them in the lead section, we would have to write "eight people were killed by the bomb".  Cs32en  15:26, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

I removed the following paragraph, as the assessments made by officials are not conclusions drawn from an investigation. The information may be added to the article somewhere else, however.

  Cs32en Talk to me  01:53, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I've updated the opening paragraphs after finding that two paragraphs were hidden by an open (ref) tag. Here is the third, which I've removed because it isn't relevant enough for the opening.

The U.S. requested that Pakistan arrest and extradite an insurgency leader, and intensified drone attacks in the northern area of Pakistan. The U.S. military also issued new security guidance to its bases in Afghanistan. The CIA and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation investigated the attack. U.S. President Barack Obama praised the CIA officers who died in the bombing, and Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the attack. All seven of the operatives killed in the attack were memorialized with a star on the agency's Memorial Wall at its headquarters.^[1]

Mnnlaxer (talk) 21:13, 31 July 2013 (UTC)

The Haqqani network was originally suspect of involvement in the attack, but they were not a part of it, nor has it been shown they even knew about it beforehand. I am parking the section here if some information or sources can be used elsewhere. A background section should remain, however, the Haqqani network and US-Pakistani relations do not need sections themselves. Mnnlaxer (talk) 14:37, 1 August 2013 (UTC)

There was considerable confusion after the attack about the motivations of the attacker and the source of its support.^[17][18] It was not clear whether conflicting claims of responsibility indicated that Pakistani Taliban, Afghan Taliban, and al-Qaeda were working independently from each other.^[18] U.S. officials said that their investigators have yet to determine which of the groups organized the attack.^[19]

A video released in the days after the attack featured the purported bomber stating that he was carrying out the attack in response to the death of Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taliban leader who was killed by a U.S. drone in August earlier that year.^[20] The CIA launched more than 50 drone attacks in 2009, compared to more than 30 in 2008, according to an ABC News tally. The CIA officials based at Forward Operating Base Chapman were at the center of the drone campaign, according to intelligence officials, and they were looking for informants to help them find senior al-Qaeda and Haqqani leaders.^[18]

I've taken out early sources reporting erroneous claims and revised the text where it was needed. Would be glad to have someone review the changes or contribute to further improvements. Mnnlaxer (talk) 18:35, 5 August 2013 (UTC)

The book by Joby Warrick appears to be quite useful to streamline the article. Most of the text was written when information was extremely sketchy and at times unreliable. I would have two suggestions:

• Check where Joby Warrick quotes sources other than those in the article. It may be that this source (or, for that matter, other source that appeared in the meantime) may rely on a subset of the sources, while not including other sources. Then, we may still need to include different versions or use (maybe retain) wording that remains intentionally vague.
• While the previous version may have contained too much context, I feel that the current version contains too little context. I haven't looked at how much of the content may have found its way to other articles.

  Cs32en Talk to me  20:18, 19 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks. Still working on it. I'll try to add more context. Mnnlaxer (talk) 13:29, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

The bombing cannot be seen as suggesting "that al-Qaeda might not be as weakened as previously thought". One suicide attack doesn't indicate anything of the sort.Royalcourtier (talk) 00:37, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

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