CIA vows to avenge agents' deaths in Afghanistan with greater resolve - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

In a bid to avenge the assassination of seven of its operatives in Afghanistan this week, the Central Investigative Agency has vowed to find and attack Taliban and al Qaeda leaders with 'greater than ever resolve'. "There is much about the attack that isn't yet known, but this much is clear: The CIA's resolve to pursue aggressive counterterrorism operations is greater than ever," CIA spokesman George Little was quoted, as saying. Wednesday attack's attack is being considered as the deadliest assault on the CIA since the 1983 bombing of the Beirut embassy. Meanwhile, the Association of Former Intelligence Officers (AFIO) said the deaths of the CIA agents "should remind the public that the CIA is truly on the front lines in this war; one that remains officially unrecognized." AFIO President Gene Poteat criticized Obama for "his silence" on the Department of Justice's effort to prosecute CIA personnel over allegations of torture during the Bush administration. "Yet we expect these patriots to continue despite such personal and professional risks abroad -- and at home," Poteat said. So far, the identity of just one of the dead has been confirmed. The family of Harold Brown Jr., 37, said he was killed in the blast. Also among the dead was a member of the Jordanian secret service, who was working with the CIA and was at the meeting. According to reports, two of the casualties were employees of Xe Corporation, the security company formerly known as Blackwater. The Pakistani Taliban today claimed responsibility for the bombing, but that claim couldn't be confirmed. According to ABC News, the bomber was invited into the Forward Operating Base Chapman as a possible informant, but wasn't searched.