Two former Special Forces officers working as contract employees in counterterrorism for the CIA were killed in an ambush in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, the agency announced yesterday.
"These two men were no strangers to the hardships of service to country. They had been counted among the best of America's military," Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet said.
The two were involved in what became a six-hour firefight between Taliban rebels and U.S.-led coalition and Afghan forces on Saturday. Eighteen Taliban fighters were killed while six Afghan militia soldiers were wounded, according to a coalition statement.
Taliban rebels have dramatically stepped up operations recently. Last month, a U.S. soldier was killed and two others wounded in another action near Shkin. In April, two other U.S. soldiers were killed in a firefight near Shkin while they were investigating suspicious activity at the site of a rocket attack.
Agency officials would not disclose details of the mission that Carlson and Mueller were on except to say they worked for the Directorate of Operations, which carries out clandestine intelligence gathering and covert operations.
Shkin is six miles from the Pakistani border and home to a key firebase that is manned by U.S. military and CIA operatives trying to control infiltration along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and to aid in the complex, ongoing search for Osama bin Laden, according to military and congressional sources.
A publication of the 82nd Airborne Division in July described the Shkin base as "a mud fortress that resembles the Alamo." As for the area, one officer described it as "the front line on the war on terrorism right now because we believe that the bad guys are very nearby."
Two other CIA operatives have been killed since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. Johnny Michael Spann, another former military officer, was killed in an uprising at a prison in northern Afghanistan in November 2001. Helge Boes died in February when a grenade detonated prematurely during a live-fire exercise in eastern Afghanistan.
Tenet said Carlson and Mueller "were defined by dedication and courage." He said, "Their sacrifice -- for the peoples of the United States and Afghanistan -- must never be forgotten."
