WASHINGTON -- The suicide bomber who killed seven Central Intelligence Agency employees and contractors and a Jordanian intelligence officer was a double agent the CIA had recruited to provide intelligence on senior al Qaeda leadership, according to current and former U.S. officials and an Afghan security official.

The officials said the bomber was a Jordanian doctor likely affiliated and working with al Qaeda.

The Afghan security official identified the bomber as Hammam Khalil Abu Mallal al-Balawi, who is also known as Abu Dujana al-Khurasani. The Pakistani Taliban also claimed that Mr. al-Balawi was the bomber, Arabic-language Web sites reported Monday.

Mr. al-Balawi was brought to the CIA's base in Khost Province by the Jordanian intelligence official, Sharif Ali bin Zeid, who was working with the CIA, according to the Afghan security official.

The bomber appears to have been invited to an operational planning meeting on al Qaeda, a former senior U.S. intelligence official said. "It looks like an al Qaeda double agent," the former official said. "It's very sophisticated for a terrorist group that's supposedly on the run."