CIA Deaths

Five Americans employed by the Central Intelligence Agency have died in the war in Afghanistan, according to a former senior intelligence official. Sources indicate that no CIA personnel have died in Iraq.

The CIA has publicly identified four of those killed in the Afghan conflict -- two staffers and two contractors. The two staffers were Johnny (Mike) Spann and Helge Boes. Spann, 32, a former Marine Corps officer from Winfield, Ala., became the first U.S. fatality in the war when he died in November 2001 during the Mazar-i-Sharif prison uprising. Boes, also 32, was a Harvard Law School graduate who lived with his wife in Northern Virginia. He died in February 2003, when a grenade detonated prematurely.

The two civilian CIA contractors were killed in an ambush on October 25 while tracking terrorists near Shkin, Afghanistan. One of the dead was Christopher Glenn Mueller, 32, of San Diego, a former Navy SEAL. The other contractor was William (Chief) Carlson, 43, of Southern Pines, N.C., who had retired from the Army with a background in Special Operations.

At a May 21 memorial service that honored 83 CIA employees who have died in service over the years, CIA Director George Tenet hailed the sacrifices of the four men and noted that they died "fighting a pitiless enemy in a remote, rugged place."

The fifth death in the conflict, according to the former official, was a "detailee" to the agency from another branch of the government. An agency spokesperson declined to comment on that death.