Jennifer Matthews

Camp Chapman attack
Kabul Khost Miranshah, Pakistan Camp Chapman is just southeast of Khost, Afghanistan
Location	Khost Province, Afghanistan
Date	December 30, 2009
Target	CIA facility
Attack type	Suicide bombing
Deaths	10 (including the attacker)
Non-fatal injuries	6
Perpetrators	al-Qaeda, Pakistani Taliban

The Camp Chapman attack was a suicide attack by Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi against the Central Intelligence Agency facility inside Forward Operating Base Chapman on December 30, 2009. FOB Chapman is located near the eastern Afghanistan city of Khost, which is about 10 miles northwest of the border with Pakistan. One of the main tasks of the CIA personnel stationed at the base was to provide intelligence supporting drone attacks against targets in Pakistan. Seven American CIA officers and contractors, an officer of Jordan's intelligence service, and an Afghan working for the CIA were killed when al-Balawi detonated a bomb sewn into a vest he was wearing. Six other American CIA officers were wounded. The bombing was the most lethal attack against the CIA in more than 25 years.

Al-Balawi was a Jordanian doctor and jihadist website writer who was detained and interrogated over three days by the Jordanian intelligence service, the General Intelligence Directorate (GID), in January 2009. The GID and the CIA thought they had turned al-Balawi to penetrate al-Qaeda in the Pakistani tribal areas to provide intelligence for high-level targets. Instead, al-Balawi used this trust to gain access to the CIA base in Afghanistan unsearched and perpetrate the attack. The Pakistani Taliban and al-Qaeda claimed responsibility, saying they helped al-Balawi with the attack.

On December 30, 2009, Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi was picked up by Arghawan, an Afghan who was the chief of external security at Camp Chapman, at the border between Miranshah, Pakistan, and Khost, Afghanistan. Arghawan drove al-Balawi to Camp Chapman, arriving around 4:30 pm.