Jordanian boys climb the wall of an UNRWA clinic, where Jordanian suicide bomber Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi used to work as a physician in Zarqa city in Jordan. (Nader Daoud/Associated Press)

The suicide bomber responsible for killing seven CIA agents at a base in Afghanistan was being recruited by Jordan to be a double agent and infiltrate al-Qaeda, according to reports.

The bomber was identified as Humam Khalil Abu-Mulal al-Balawi, a 36-year-old doctor from Zarqa, Jordan. He had come to Camp Chapman, a CIA forward base in Khost, saying he had urgent information to help track down Ayman al-Zawahri.

Al-Zawahri is considered al-Qaeda's No. 2 leader and Osama bin Laden's right-hand man.

Instead, al-Balawi detonated explosives that had been strapped to his body shortly after he began to be debriefed, according to a former intelligence official. He had not been searched for explosives, officials said.

Eight people were killed in the blast — seven CIA employees and al-Balawi's Jordanian recruiter, Ali bin Zaid, a relative of Jordan's King Abdullah II, said an official speaking under the condition of anonymity.

NBC News reported that al-Balawi had been arrested more than a year ago by Jordanian intelligence and was thought to have been persuaded to support U.S. and Jordanian efforts against al-Qaeda.

Jordan denies link

Jordanian government spokesman Nabil Sharif and other top officials have insisted that Jordan had no link to or knowledge of last Wednesday's bombing.

The CIA declined to comment about the report.

The bombing was an embarrassment for Jordanian officials. The country's pro-U.S. government has gone to great lengths to conceal its connection with the attack on the CIA to avoid angering Arabs disgruntled with Washington's Mideast policy, which they regard as biased in favour of Israel.

In September 2009, al-Balawi had been interviewed by an online jihadist magazine, according to SITE Monitoring Service, which tracks extremist websites.

SITE said Monday that al-Balawi used his pseudonym — identified as Khorsani — in the postings, and described how he rose through the ranks of online jihadist forums. He said he went to Afghanistan to fight and he exhorted others to do violence.

"No words are more eloquent than those proven by acts, so that if that Muslim survives, he will be one who proves his words with acts. If he dies in the cause of Allah, he will grant his words glory that will be permanent marks on the path to guide to jihad, with permission from Allah," al-Balawi wrote, according to SITE's translation.

Mohammed Yousef, a high school friend, said al-Balawi told family and friends in March he was going to Turkey for further medical studies, when in fact he travelled to Afghanistan to join insurgents.

With files from The Associated Press