# Mir Aimal Kansi CIA headquarters attack

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "Mir Aimal Kansi CIA headquarters attack," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/mir-aimal-kansi-attack/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*The 1993 shooting outside CIA headquarters by Pakistani gunman Mir Aimal Kansi, who killed two and wounded seven CIA-bound commuters before fleeing to Pakistan; per John Kiriakou, the CIA located Kansi months later but had to hand the arrest to the FBI, and the resulting "how the FBI got their man" Time magazine cover so enraged senior CIA officers that it shaped the agency's insistence on going it alone against al-Qaeda after 9/11.*

- **Date (per Kiriakou, recalled uncertainly):** 1992 or 1993
- **Perpetrator:** Mir Aimal Kansi
- **Casualties (per Kiriakou):** 2 killed, 7 wounded
- **Location:** CIA headquarters entrance, Langley, Virginia
- **Kansi located by:** CIA, in a hotel in Quetta, Pakistan
- **Arrest made by:** FBI

The **Mir Aimal Kansi CIA headquarters attack** was a shooting outside [CIA](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia) headquarters in Langley, Virginia — which [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) recalls uncertainly as 1992 or 1993 — carried out by Pakistani national Mir Aimal Kansi. [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) describes Kansi getting out of his car in the turning lane leading into CIA headquarters with an AK-47 and going car to car shooting commuters — skipping cars with women — killing two and wounding seven before running out of bullets, getting back in his car, driving to Dulles Airport, and flying to Pakistan on a one-way ticket with no luggage.[1]

## The manhunt and the FBI's credit

Kiriakou says the CIA located Kansi several months later in a "flea bag" hotel in Quetta, Pakistan, after spending millions of dollars on the search. Because the CIA is not a law-enforcement agency, it turned the location over to the FBI, which made the arrest. *Time* magazine then ran a cover with Kansi's picture and the headline "How the FBI Got Their Man" — a framing Kiriakou says enraged senior CIA officers, since the agency had done all the work of finding him while the FBI, in Kiriakou's characterization, "had no idea where Kansi was."[2]

## Legacy: keeping the FBI out after 9/11

Kiriakou says the Kansi case is why the CIA resolved never again to let the FBI take credit for its work. He connects it directly to the agency's post-9/11 approach to the 9/11 hijackers: rather than share intelligence with the FBI, the CIA's plan was to double the hijackers as assets, use them against al-Qaeda's leadership, and kill that leadership without any FBI involvement — "we kill the leadership, we save the country. The FBI had nothing to do with it."[3]

## See also

- [Central Intelligence Agency](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/cia)
- [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)

## Sources

1. John Kiriakou Part III: 9/11, Israeli Spying, CIA Media Manipulation (2025-09-19), at 24:05. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFhhPsbO9GU&t=1445s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-19-harrison-berger/
2. John Kiriakou Part III: 9/11, Israeli Spying, CIA Media Manipulation (2025-09-19), at 25:06. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFhhPsbO9GU&t=1506s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-19-harrison-berger/
3. John Kiriakou Part III: 9/11, Israeli Spying, CIA Media Manipulation (2025-09-19), at 26:08. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFhhPsbO9GU&t=1568s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-09-19-harrison-berger/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/mir-aimal-kansi-attack/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt