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The Bomber’s Wife

In an exclusive interview with NEWSWEEK Türkiye, the wife of the suicide bomber who killed seven
CIA employees in Afghanistan talks about her husband's life and beliefs.

By Adem Demir and Christopher Dickey | Newsweek Türkiye/Newsweek Web Exclusive

Jan 7, 2010

Soft-spoken and composed, but unmistakably angry, the wife of the suicide bomber who killed himself
and seven employees of the CIA in Afghanistan on Dec. 30 says flatly, "My husband was anti-American;
so am I." About that, there are no regrets. In an exclusive interview Thursday, Defne Bayrak, 31, spent
more than an hour at the offices of NEWSWEEK Türkiye in Istanbul talking about her husband, Dr.
Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi; his beliefs; what he may have been offered by the CIA to work as a
double agent on the trail of Al Qaeda's top leadership; and what she heard from those apostles of jihad
who ultimately inspired him to kill and die.

Al-Balawi's case is a study in the radicalization of someone who is well-educated, economically well-off,
devout, and disciplined. Such people may not fit into the public's stereotypical idea of a terrorist, but the
profile is increasingly familiar to police and intelligence officers involved with counterterrorism. Many of
Al Qaeda's most successful attacks, from 9/11 to the London transit-system bombings in 2005, were
directed and executed by such intelligent, articulate, religious, and suicidally violent men.

The story of al-Balawi and Bayrak also cuts across

boundaries of language and culture. Bayrak is
Turkish and a journalist, and while she wears a
headscarf to show she is an observant Muslim,
others in her family do not. Among books she has
translated is one called Bin Laden: Che Guevara of
the East. Al-Balawi, 32 when he died, was a
Palestinian born and raised in Kuwait, then Jordan,
who trained as a doctor in Istanbul. "He was always
conservative, but not an extremist," says Bayrak.
They met in an internet chat room and married
when he was in his last year of medical school in
2001. Then they moved back to Jordan, where he
worked in local hospitals, and where their two little
girls were born.

Al-Balawi "started to change," says his wife, after the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003. By 2004, she
says, he began to talk to her about his strong belief in the need for violent jihad against Western occupiers
of Muslim lands, but he was not part of any organization or group. "He followed all of them, but from a
distance," she says. "He was constantly reading and writing. He was crazy about online forums. He would

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go onto them and write severe, extremely hardline comments. He would cite verses from the Quran that
talked about the need for jihad, and then write very tough comments based on those verses or on the
sayings of the Prophet."

It may have been during this time that al-Balawi first attracted the attention of Jordan's General
Intelligence Directorate (GID), where Ali bin Zaid, a young cousin of King Abdullah's, was among the
analysts who kept a close watch on jihadist chat rooms and bulletin boards.

Bayrak says her husband had some contacts with the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, which operates
mostly in the realm of nonviolent politics, and he came away disillusioned. She asked him why he
bothered to go to their dinners when he was invited. "I go to eat their mansaf [meat and rice]," he said,
"but nothing will come of these men or their organizations." Increasingly, al-Balawi and Bayrak talked
about his desire to go to some of the battlefields where jihads were being fought. Iraq was just next door.
The struggle continued in Afghanistan.

Then a year ago, the Israelis launched their devastating assault on Hamas and its infrastructure in Gaza
after repeated random rocket attacks on Israeli towns. Al-Balawi signed up with a group of doctors who
wanted to offer aid to the besieged Palestinians, more than 1,000 of whom were killed in the offensive. In
January, al-Balawi was arrested by the GID.

"We thought he would not be released for a long time," says Bayrak. "But they let him go after only three
days." Asked if she could confirm what other sources have told NEWSWEEK Türkiye, that al-Balawi was
offered as much as $500,000 by the CIA and $100,000 by the Jordanians to track down Al Qaeda's
leadership, Bayrak said only, "It might be true."

Soon afterward, although al-Balawi told his parents in Amman that he was going back to Turkey for
further studies, he went instead to Pakistan. Bayrak says he told her the trip was for "a special
examination," and she should go back to Turkey. They talked and e-mailed occasionally after that, but
Bayrak says she did not know exactly what he was doing or who he was working with, and she had not
seen him for months. Then on Dec. 30, she heard about the explosion at the CIA's Forward Operating
Base Chapman in Afghanistan. (Among the dead: the Jordanian case officer Ali bin Zaid.)

Two days later, Bayrak got a call from a number she believes was in Pakistan. Her husband had left a last
will and testament, said the caller, and it would be delivered to her. She would also be able to see the
father of her children once again. "Your husband did this for Allah," said the voice on the phone. "We will
broadcast a video of his celebrated martyrdom on the Web and you will watch him."

To read NEWSWEEK Türkiye's story about Bayrak, click here. Read the transcript of Newsweek
Türkiye's full interview.

Find this article at

http://www.newsweek.com/id/229792

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