| Particular Operations Joint Activity Drive – Operation Inherent Resolve |
A civilian Arabic linguist working as a contractor for the Division of Protection at a Particular Operations Activity Drive facility in Irbil, northern Iraq, was arrested and charged with espionage.
Miriam Taha Thompson, 61, is accused of transmitting extremely delicate labeled nationwide protection data to a international nationwide with obvious connections to the Lebanese terrorist group Hizballah.
For the authorized sorts, the precise cost is Delivering Protection Data to Support a Overseas Authorities in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 794(a) and conspiring to take action in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 794(c).
The Division of Justice press launch contains hyperlinks to the legal criticism and an affidavit detailing Thompson’s alleged actions. I’m shocked on the stage of element within the affidavit – at occasions, it seems to be divulging what many people intelligence professionals would think about delicate data.
My compliments to FBI Particular Agent Danielle Ray for her wonderful recap of this alleged crime. She feedback that the affidavit solely contains sufficient data to assist possible trigger for Thompson’s arrest and that there’s extra data. As if this isn’t dangerous sufficient….
Thompson was arrested on February 27 in Irbil, Iraq. She held a High Secret safety clearance with entry to Delicate Compartmented Data in addition to entry to delicate data on the true identification of human sources offering intelligence to American intelligence officers.
Thompson offered the names of a least 4 of those American intelligence sources to a Lebanese nationwide with ties to Hizballah, in addition to a warning to the person about U.S. intelligence operations focusing on Hizballah and the Amal Motion. Each Hizballah and Amal are Lebanese Shi’a teams designated by the State Division as international terrorist organizations.
I’ve learn the affidavit and can element a number of the extra pertinent data that exhibits how a lot harm a well-placed spy can do in a brief time period. It seems that Thompson dedicated these crimes between December 30, 2019 and February 19, 2020. It’s fascinating that she started these actions virtually instantly after her arrival in Irbil in mid-December.
I’ll attempt to break this down right into a extra readable narrative, based mostly on my evaluation of the affidavit, press launch, and media accounts. It reads like a spy novel. Granted, a few of that is hypothesis, however I used to do that for a residing.
Miriam Taha (a really Lebanese title) was both born in an Arabic-speaking nation, or grew up in the USA the daughter of immigrants in an Arabic-speaking family. In any case, she possessed a helpful and marketable ability – the flexibility to talk and perceive Arabic on the native stage.
Apparently, Miriam Taha married and have become know by her husband’s surname, Thompson (we’re unaware of her marital standing). She took a job as an Arabic linguist for a authorities contractor. As a part of her employment, she obtained a High Secret clearance and was granted entry to Particular Compartmented Data, and operational intelligence data on human intelligence sources. That is among the many most delicate data within the intelligence neighborhood.
In some unspecified time in the future, Thompson grew to become romantically concerned with a Lebanese nationwide with ties to the Amal Motion. Amal is a Lebanese Shi’a group at occasions affiliated with Lebanese Hizballah – each teams have been designated as international terrorist organizations by the U.S. State Division.
I believe that her romantic involvement was a focused recruitment by this Lebanese nationwide, recognized within the affidavit as “Co-conspirator.” This particular person is what we within the intelligence neighborhood name a case officer – he was Thompson’s handler, and he or she was his asset. She admitted to her interrogators that “Co-conspirator” had a nephew working within the Lebanese Ministry of the Inside. Talking as knowledgeable, this was a properly deliberate and executed recruitment.
The timing of what precisely occurred main as much as the precise legal exercise is tough to find out. We all know that someday round December 30, 2019, Thompson, now working on the Particular Operations Activity Drive within the Kurdish metropolis of Irbil in northern Iraq, started accessing information referring to American intelligence operations, particularly human intelligence penetrations, focusing on each the Amal and Hizballah teams in Lebanon.
Evidently, this search of knowledge bases for data exterior the scope of Thompson’s must know triggered some form of alert or alarm. Though she was finally detected and stopped, she was in a position to do extreme harm within the six weeks she was conducting this operation. Thompson compromised extraordinarily delicate data, together with the identification of 4 American belongings working in Lebanon to the very folks these belongings have been focusing on.
Thompson, in essence, hit the jackpot. Her searches of the labeled knowledge bases on the Irbil facility – which can have been linked to centralized intelligence neighborhood knowledge bases – yielded 57 information on the specified operations in Lebanon. Shockingly, these information contained the true names, background data, and even pictures of eight human sources working for U.S. intelligence.
Take a minute and take into consideration that. “Eight human sources” interprets to eight individuals who had agreed to work with/for U.S. intelligence officers for no matter cause – patriotism, greed, revenge, who is aware of? Publicity of those belongings in a rustic like Lebanon would imply arrest, aggressive interrogation (learn: torture), and both incarceration or extra seemingly, an unpleasant dying. It’s believed that 4 identities have been compromised to her case officer.
Irrespective of how naïve Thompson tries to seem, her personal phrases transmitted to her case officer point out her stage of involvement. She warned her case officer that at the least 4 of those U.S. belongings have been working in Lebanon, focusing on the Amal group amongst others, and suggesting that the belongings’ telephones be tapped. That’s not simply offering data, that’s actively taking part in an operation of a hostile intelligence service in opposition to the USA.
Though she expressed her hatred for each Hizballah and Amal, she by no means defined her rationale for offering data on American intelligence operations in opposition to these designated terrorist teams.
As a former case officer, I’m at all times within the why. Why did she agree to do that? What did she get out of it? She claims to hate the 2 teams she seemingly helped, however did it anyway, in actual fact, taking an curiosity in warning the targets of American intelligence operations. I assume she did it for her lover.
We nonetheless don’t know the outcomes of Thompson’s treason. I believe that if the 4 human belongings have been found and arrested, she could also be liable for their deaths. Sadly, the legislation limits her punishment to life imprisonment.
My query for the U.S. intelligence neighborhood writ giant, and particularly the Particular Operations Activity Drive in Irbil – why was this comparatively low-level contract worker able to getting access to human supply true identification knowledge?
Inexcusable. Somebody must be held accountable for that, however will they?
