were security contractors working for Xe Services (formerly Blackwater and known as Academi since 2011), a private security company. The bodies of the CIA operatives were transferred to the U.S., and a private ceremony was held at Dover Air Force Base, which was attended by CIA director Leon Panetta. CIA officers who had traveled from Kabul to the base for the meeting, including the Deputy Chief of Kabul Station, were among those injured. The deputy chief was in grave condition and was taken to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center, a U.S. military hospital in Germany. Captain Sharif Ali bin Zeid, 34, a Jordanian military intelligence officer, was killed in the attack. He was the Jordanian handler of al-Balawi and the liaison between him and the CIA. Bin Zeid was a cousin to King Abdullah II of Jordan. Bin Zeid's wake was held in the Royal Palace. King Abdullah II and Queen Rania attended his funeral. Official Jordanian news reports said that he died while performing humanitarian service in Afghanistan. His death shed light on the U.S.-Jordanian intelligence partnership, which is rarely acknowledged publicly, yet seen by U.S. officials as highly important for their counter-terrorism strategy. Arghawan, 30, the base's Afghan external security chief, had picked up al-Balawi at the Pakistan border and drove him to Camp Chapman. He was also killed in the attack. Responsibility Al-Qaeda Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack. Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, the al-Qaeda leader in Afghanistan, stated that the attack was intended to avenge the deaths of three al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders who were killed in U.S. drone attacks. "He avenged our prime martyrs, and as he wrote in his final testament, may God have mercy on him: Taking revenge for the leader the Amir Beitullah Mehsud and the leaders Abu Saleh al-Somali and Abdallah Said al-Libi and their brothers, may God have mercy on them," al-Yazid wrote. Baitullah Mehsud was the former head of the Pakistani Taliban, Saleh al-Somali was in charge of al-Qaeda operations outside of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Said al-Libi was a senior Libyan member of the group, and the leader of al-Qaeda's military organization in the region, the Lashkar al-Zil. Pakistani Taliban Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan also claimed responsibility for the attack and said that they used a turncoat CIA informant to carry it out. Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud claimed responsibility for the attack, and stated that the attack would avenge the killings