Brother: CIA Bomber Under "Huge Pressures"

The brother of a Jordanian doctor accused of being a double agent and blowing himself up, killing seven CIA operatives at a U.S. camp in Afghanistan, said he was a good person who was suffering "huge pressures."

Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi had told his family he was headed to Turkey after returning from Gaza, where he worked as a medic, his brother told CNN Thursday from his family's home in Amman. The brother said al-Balawi was upset about the war in Gaza. "He was a very good person," the brother said.

The bombing - the worst attack against the CIA in decades - exposed the close cooperation between Jordanian intelligence and the CIA, which has for decades helped fund and train Jordanian operatives.

Al-Balawi's brother said his father received a mysterious call the day after the bombing saying that while his son was a hero, the family would have "to deal" with the "bad news." Since the bombing, the brother said Jordanian intelligence officials had made several visits to their home.

A top al Qaeda leader Wednesday praised the Dec. 30 attack on the CIA outpost and said it was to avenge the deaths of a Pakistani Taliban leader and two al Qaeda figures.

The claim was made in a message on jihadist Internet forums. It added further confusion to which group orchestrated the suicide bombing that killed seven CIA employees and a Jordanian intelligence officer and wounded six.

Also Wednesday, al-Balawi's wife said her husband regarded the United States as an adversary.

Defne Bayrak, the Turkish wife of Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, told Turkish media by telephone she was shocked at the news that her husband blew himself up at a base in Afghanistan on Dec. 30, killing himself and the officers.

Bayrak, who lives in Istanbul, said her husband had plans to become a specialist in surgery in Turkey and doubts he was working for the CIA.

"I don't believe that he was an agent for CIA or for Jordan," she told private NTV television. "He was someone who even did not like to leave home."

Bayrak, an Arabic language translator for some Turkish media outlets, later told private CNN-Turk television that while in Jordan her husband wrote articles for Jihad Web sites, in which the United States is considered an adversary.