WASHINGTON, May 22: The CIA at a memorial ceremony on Tuesday honoured previously unnamed officers who died in action, with agency director David Petraeus praising their “selfless sacrifice” for the United States.

Among those named at the event at Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Virginia were Jeffrey Patneau, killed in Yemen in 2008, and five officers who died in the bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut in 1983.

“Jeff proved that he had boundless talent, courage, and innovativeness to offer our country in its fight against terrorism,” said Petraeus. “He was taken from us just as he had begun what promised to be a brilliant career.”

A memorial wall in the lobby of CIA headquarters commemorates 103 Americans who died in service.

“All heard the same call to duty and answered it without hesitation -- never for acclaim, always for country,” said Petraeus, a former US Army general who took charge at the agency last year.

“They devoted their hearts and minds to a mission unlike any other... serving on the world’s most dangerous frontiers to defend our people, defeat our adversaries, and advance our freedoms.”

In a statement, the CIA said 15 names were inscribed in its book of honor this year, “allowing agency officers to publicly acknowledge those who have been represented by stars and whom we have silently mourned for years.”

The five officers killed in the embassy bombing in Beirut, in which 63 people died, included Phyliss Faraci, one of the final four Americans airlifted from the Mekong Delta when Saigon, then capital of South Vietnam, fell in 1975.

Also named were Deborah Hixon, who was on a temporary assignment to Beirut, Frank Johnston, a 25-year veteran officer close to retirement, and James Lewis, a former soldier whose fluent French and Arabic “uniquely qualified him for service,” in the Lebanese capital, the CIA said.

Petraeus, alluding to the challenge of global terrorism, said the Beirut bombing “was not, of course, the CIA’s first deadly encounter with terrorism, but it was where we first caught sight of the adversary we face today.”—AFP