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In March 2020, I wrote and evaluation of a U.S. Military contract
linguist who was arrested for espionage. You possibly can learn that article right here: Division
of Protection Linguist Charged with Espionage – A Spy Story.
This week, that linguist, Miriam Taha Thompson, was
sentenced to 23 years in jail for “delivering labeled nationwide protection
info to assist a overseas authorities.” The sentence was a part of a plea
settlement – Thompson admitted that she knew that the High Secret intelligence
info that she was passing to a Lebanese nationwide could be supplied to Hizballah,
a chosen overseas terrorist group. Given the truth that Thompson is 62
years of age, a 23-year sentence constitutes a digital life sentence.
I’m superb with that. She ought to spend the remainder of her life in
jail. Once I wrote the article final 12 months, we knew from Thompson’s admissions
that she not solely supplied info that included true identities of eight
human intelligence sources, she exercise suggested her Lebanese lover/case
officer on easy methods to accumulate extra info on the sources.
What we didn’t know a 12 months in the past is that the operation during which she
willingly participated was an Iranian intelligence operation targeted on figuring out
the American intelligence sources who made the assassinations of Islamic
Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Qods Pressure commander Qasem Suleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the founding father of the
infamous Iranian-backed and managed Iraqi Shi’a militia Kata’ib Hezbollah. Each
males have been killed in an American drone strike on January 3, 2020 simply outdoors the
The killing of Suleimani and al-Muhandis was made potential
by a superb U.S. intelligence operation. Likewise, the Iranian-Hizballah
operation to ferret out the Individuals’ human sources was additionally efficient. Sadly, it’s spy versus spy.
In response to the Division of Justice announcement, in 2017, she began speaking a Lebanese nationwide (an
unindicted co-conspirator), with whom she entered right into a romantic relationship.
She was conscious that he had ties to Lebanese Hizballah.
In December 2019, whereas Thompson was assigned to a Particular
Operations Job Pressure facility in
the
collection of airstrikes in
focusing on Kata’ib Hezbollah; that effort culminated within the drone strike that killed Soleimani
and al-Muhandis.
Following Suleimani’s dying in January 2020, her Lebanese
case officer started asking Thompson to offer “them” with details about the
human belongings who had helped the
States
admitted that she understood “them” to be senior Lebanese Hizballah officers. It
is extensively understood that offering something to HIzballah is identical as
offering it to the IRGC.
After receiving this “request for info” – that is
truly her tasking – in early January 2020, Thompson started accessing dozens
of recordsdata regarding human intelligence sources, together with true names, private
identification information, background info and pictures of the human belongings,
in addition to experiences detailing info the belongings supplied to the U.S.
intelligence group.
By the point she was arrested by the FBI on February 27, 2020,
Thompson had supplied Hizballah with the identities of not less than eight
clandestine human belongings and a listing of not less than 10
She knew what she was doing.
As I stated in my earlier article, irrespective of how naïve
Thompson tries to seem, her personal phrases transmitted to her case officer
point out her degree of involvement. She warned her case officer that not less than
4 of those
have been working in
focusing on the Amal group amongst others, and instructed that the belongings’
telephones be tapped. That’s not simply offering info, that’s actively
taking part in an operation of a hostile intelligence service in opposition to the
My query for the
intelligence group writ giant, and particularly the Particular Operations Job
Pressure in
– why was this comparatively low-level contract worker able to gaining entry
to human supply true identification information?
Inexcusable. Somebody must be held accountable for that, however
will they? Uncertain – they discovered the spy, so it’s congratulations throughout
and again to enterprise as regular.
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