Friday after two "junk shot" attempts to plug the leak with rubber and other materials, said a technician working on the operation, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about it.
But Mr. Murphy reversed course — rather suddenly, from the perspective of many in the Poizner camp, said Michael J. Schroeder, an unpaid senior adviser to the campaign, as well as two others close to the Poizner operation who spoke on condition of anonymity because they feared reprisals from Whitman supporters.
The official was not authorized to discuss the operation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
"In the last two months, our confidence evaporated again," said an American investor with operations in Indonesia, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Mr. Clarridge's network, recently renamed the Eclipse Group, has also fed information to an F.B.I.-supervised task force in Kabul charged with rooting out corruption inside Afghanistan's government, according to people familiar with the operation who would speak only on condition of anonymity.
The official was not authorized to discuss details of the operation by name and spoke on condition of anonymity.
"The idea was to look at private sellers to see how they would behave in a scenario where the purchaser gave them a reason to believe they would be prohibited from buying a gun," said a person involved with the operation, who could speak only on condition of anonymity.
"This attack will be avenged through successful, aggressive counterterrorism operations," a US intelligence official said on condition of anonymity.
"With violence increasing, the most likely option for the United Nations is to reduce or eliminate the (unarmed) m ilitary component of UNSMIS (U.N. Supervision Mission in Syria) while keeping a civilian component in place as a kind of liaison operation," a senior Western envoy said on condition of anonymity.
One person who was briefed on the proposal prepared by the Special Operations Command staff members, and who spoke on condition of anonymity because the briefing had not yet been approved, said it was in the form of about two dozen slides.
