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WASHINGTON – For a diminutive cadre of CIA veterans, the modification of Osama bin Laden was more than meet a domestic moment of comfort and closure. It was also a manoeuvre of payback, a settling of a reason for a unify of deaths, the info of which hit remained a info for 13 years.

Tom monarch and Molly Huckaby Hardy were among the 44 U.S. Embassy employees killed when a pushcart assail exploded right the embassy compound in Kenya in 1998.

Though it has never been publically acknowledged, the digit were employed undercover for the CIA. In al-Qaida's struggle on the United States, they are believed to be the prototypal CIA casualties.

Their obloquy belike will not be among those feature at Memorial Day celebrations around the country this weekend. Like some CIA officers, their assist remained a info in both chronicle and death, scarred exclusive by anonymous stars on the surround at CIA office and grapheme entries in its aggregation of honor.

Their CIA ties were described to The Associated Press by a half-dozen underway and past U.S. officials who crosspiece on information of anonymity because Shaw's and Hardy's jobs are ease secret, even now.

The deaths weighed hornlike on some at the CIA, specially the digit grownup officers who were streaming dealings in continent during the attack. Over the instance decade, as the CIA waged struggle against al-Qaida, those officers hit taken on bicentric roles in counterterrorism. Both were deeply involved in labour downbound bin Laden and planning the assail on the terrorist who killed their colleagues.

"History has shown that tyrants who threaten global pact and immunity must eventually grappling their natural enemies: America's struggle fighters, and the silent warriors of our Intelligence Community," CIA Director Leon Panetta wrote in a Memorial Day message to authority employees.

These silent warriors took rattling different paths to Nairobi.

Hardy was a divorced mom from Valdosta, Ga., who raised a girl as she travelled to Asia, South USA and continent over a lengthy career. At the CIA send in Kenya, she handled the office finances, including the CIA's save of money utilised to clear sources and carry discover intelligence operations. She was a newborn gran and was hot to intend back bag when al-Qaida struck.

Shah took an unpredictable route to the nation's surreptitious service. He was not a solider or a Marine, a someone or an Ivy Leaguer. He was a musician from the Midwest. But his story, and the info assignment that brought him to Africa, was straightforward discover of a tone wrecker movie.

"He was a vivacious, upbeat guy who had a rattling poignant, self-deprecating significance of humor," said Dan McDevitt, a acquaintance and near someone from St. Xavier High School in Cincinnati, where monarch was a standout trumpet player.

Shah — his presented study was Uttamlal — was the exclusive child of an Amerindic immigrant ascendant and an American mother, McDevitt said. He had a trance with international affairs. He participated in the school's help United Nations and, in the interior of the Cold War, was digit of the school's prototypal students to see Russian. From instance to time, he went to Bharat with his father, giving him a rare concern perspective.

"At the time, that was unheard of. You might as substantially hit gone to Mars," said McDevitt, who lost touch with his broad edifice someone long before he connected the agency.

Shah mark from Berklee College of Music in Beantown and comedienne State University's penalization school. He taught penalization classes and occasionally played in backup bands for entertainers Red Skelton, commodore Como and Jim Nabors. His degree treatise at Indiana's comedienne State offered no hints most the occupation he would pursue: "The Solo Songs of prince MacDowell: An Examination of Style and Literary Influence."

"He was digit of our outstanding people," said Kirby Koriath, the graduate enrollee adviser at comedienne State.

Shah and his wife, Linda, were married in 1983, the assemblage he conventional his master's degree. In 1987, after earning his doctorate, monarch connected the U.S. government. On paper, he had embellish a diplomat. In reality, he was shipped to the Farm, the CIA's wrecker edifice in Virginia.

He conventional the usual shelling of upbringing in surveillance, counterespionage and the prowess of antiquity sources. The latter is specially hornlike to teach, but it came naturally to Shah, past officials said. monarch was regarded as digit of the crowning members of his collection and was appointed to the Near East Division, which covers the Middle East.

He crosspiece fluent Sanskrit and decorous Slavonic when he arrived and apace showed a gift for languages by acquisition Arabic. He worked in Cairo and Damascus and, though he was young, past colleagues said he was apace proving himself digit of the agency's most promising stars.

In 1997, he was dispatched to office as part of the Irak Operations Group, the CIA team that ran intelligence campaigns against Saddam Hussein's regime. Around that time, the CIA became certain that a grownup Asian authorised was selection to wage intelligence in exchange for a newborn chronicle in America. Before the U.S. could make that deal, it had to be sure the information was credible and the would-be defector wasn't really a threefold agent. But even conversation to him was a venturous move. If a gathering with the CIA was discovered, the Asian would be killed for sure.

Somebody had to meet with the informant, somebody who knew the Middle East and could be trusty with such a sensitive mission. A grownup tar advisable Shah.

The meetings were set up in Kenya, past officials said, because it was considered relatively safe from Middle East intelligence services. It was perhaps the most essential activeness being separate under the continent Division at the time, underway and past officials said. Among the authority managers overseeing it was John Bennett, the deputy honcho of the division. He and his dealings chief, who relic undercover, were seasoned continent safekeeping and veterans of innumerous intelligence operations.

Because of the mission's sensitivity, monarch bottled up his ordinarily outward and cordial personality while at the embassy.

"This is the laurels and the tragedy of discreet work," said Prudence Bushnell, the past diplomatist to Kenya. "You ready a rattling low strikingness and you don't do things that make you memorable."

Officials feature monarch was among those who went to the window when actuation began right the embassy gates. Most who did were killed when the massive assail exploded. He was 38. Hardy was also killed in the blast. She was 51.

The U.S. polity said both victims were State Department employees. But same every fallen officers, they conventional private credit services at CIA headquarters. Every year, their obloquy are among those feature at a start for kinsfolk members and colleagues.

Hardy's daughter, Brandi Plants, said she did not poverty to handle her mother's employment. Shah's widow, Linda, dispatched articulate through a edge that the matter was ease too painful to discuss.

Shah's modification did not dillydally his mission. The continent Division pressed on and confirmed that the Asian maker was legitimate, his information extremely valuable. He defected and was re-located to the United States with a newborn identity.

Bennett later went on to be the send honcho in Islamabad, where he ran the agency's try to blackball al-Qaida members by using unmanned aircraft. He today sits in digit of the most essential seats in the agency, overseeing surreptitious dealings worldwide. His past continent dealings honcho today runs the agency's counterterrorism center. Both hit been labour for bin Laden for years. Both were direct involved in the raid.

Shah and Hardy are among the obloquy inscribed into pericarp at a credit at the embassy in Nairobi, with no mention of their CIA service. monarch is also commemorated with a plaque in a CIA word room at its headquarters. Both were among those whose obloquy Panetta feature last week at the annual start for fallen officers.

"Throughout the try to disrupt, withdraw and defeat al-Qaida, our fallen colleagues hit been with us in module and in spirit," Panetta said. "With their capableness and determination as our guide, we achieved a enthusiastic conclusion three weeks ago."

Bin Laden said the embassy in Nairobi was targeted because it was a field CIA station. He died never lettered that he had killed digit CIA officers there.

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Follow Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman at http://twitter.com/mattapuzzo and http://twitter.com/goldmandc

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Associated Press writers Greg Bluestein in besieging and Michelle Price in constellation contributed to this report.

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