Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a 'triple agent' who blew up seven CIA agents in Afghanistan, was a Jordanian doctor and Islamist who the authorities believed they had turned against al-Qaeda.

Balawi was from Zarqa, the same Jordanian town as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the infamous leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq who tormented the US military and Bush administration until his death in 2006 with a terrorist campaign that inspired militants around the world and made him a rival in influence to Osama bin Laden.

Balawi, who was also known as Hammam Khalil Mohammed, died last week aged 36 when he detonated explosives at a CIA forward operating base, Camp Chapman, in Khost, eastern Afghanistan in a suicide mission.

He was languishing in a Jordanian prison after being arrested for his militancy when the country's intelligence service, the Dairat al Mukhabarat - or General Intelligence Department (GID) - tried to turn him into a spy.

The GID has deep ties to the CIA and Balawi emerged as a figure of great interest to US intelligence, which believed he could be put to use in the hunt for Islamist terror's most notorious figures in the so-called "core al-Qaeda" leadership.

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