“The defendant’s decision to help a overseas terrorist group was a betrayal that endangered the lives of the very American men and women on the battlefield who had served beside her for greater than a decade,” mentioned Acting U.S. Attorney Channing D. Phillips for the District of Columbia. In 2019, whereas Thompson was assigned to a Special Operations Task Force facility in Iraq, the United States launched a series of airstrikes in Iraq targeting Kata’ib Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed foreign terrorist group. In Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, then the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, wrote a glowing 2010 letter of endorsement for me that I had put on my LinkedIn web page on the Internet. He wrote that I ‘provided essential data to the theatre-level command which affected policy and operations all through the country’. He really helpful me for a job as a leader of a U.S. army human terrain staff, or as a cultural adviser. Sometimes those footage are merely of themselves, however fairly often they’re taken with a lens.
“It’s astounding that an American working for the us army abroad would abandon her country in favor of terrorists,” Alan Kohler Jr., assistant director for the FBI’s Counterintelligence Division, mentioned in an announcement. “The FBI and its companions positioned a excessive priority on this case as a outcome of the defendant supplied classified protection info to a international terrorist group, data that put members of the us army in hurt’s method.” The man was “very emotional and upset about the united states airstrikes, especially the demise of , and he began to ask Thompson to supply ‘them’ with details about the human assets that had helped the United States to target” the Iranian commander, the courtroom documents said. Thompson’s unindicted co-conspirator asked her for data on who was helping the united states targeting effort. The linguist, who had a top-secret authorities security clearance, began accessing categorised information in Pentagon computer methods on Dec. 30, at some point earlier than protesters stormed the united states ‘There is not any question in my thoughts that the offense conduct to which the defendant admitted endangered U.S. navy personnel and human assets’ work with the United States and accordingly posed a big menace to nationwide safety.
District Judge John D. Bates, however he said he was unaware of any espionage case the place the convicted received lower than 15 years for giving up the identifies of human assets, The Washington Post reported. Mariam Taha Thompson admitted that she believed she was passing classified nationwide defense info that may ultimately find yourself within the hands of Lebanese Hezbollah. Mariam Taha Thompson, 62, had pleaded guilty on March 26 to a minimal of one depend of delivering nationwide protection information to help a international authorities.
As part of the plea, Thompson admitted that beginning in 2017, she communicated with an individual using a video-chat feature on a safe text and voice-messaging application. Under questioning, Thompson admitted to passing the data to her boyfriend, but denied understanding of any Hezbollah affiliation, suggesting instead he might need been tied to the Amal political party in Lebanon — although she admitted she thought-about the teams to be one and the same. When officers searched her living quarters, they found a handwritten notice in Arabic concealed underneath her mattress with details about Defense Department pc methods and warning of a Defense Department target. Following the US airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani and Iraqi Hezbollah branch founder Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in January 2020, the documents state, Thompson’s boyfriend asked her to supply details about informants who may have tipped off the US about Soleimani’s location. Thompson agreed to do so, believing that he would break off their relationship if she didn’t.
A US Department of Defense linguist was sentenced to 23 years in prison on June 23 for transmitting extremely delicate categorised nationwide protection info to assist a overseas authorities. Mariam Taha Thompson, 62, formerly of Rochester, Minnesota, pleaded guilty on March 26 for sending information to a Lebanese nationwide that she believed could be provided to Hizballah. According to courtroom paperwork, Thompson was a contract linguist at an overseas US navy facility and had a Top Secret authorities safety clearance. Starting in 2017, she began communicating with an unnamed co-conspirator, with whom she had a romantic interest, over a safe text and voice messaging utility. The co-conspirator made it known they’d connections in the Lebanese Ministry of the Interior, in addition to Hizballah. Following the dying of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani in 2020, the co-conspirator asked Thompson to move along details about human assets who helped the United States target Soleimani.
Following Suleimani’s death, the unindicted co-conspirator started asking Thompson to offer “them” with details about the human belongings who had helped the United States to target Suleimani. “Thompson was entrusted with extremely delicate information, and he or she selected to betray her country by providing categorized protection data to a international terrorist group,” stated Assistant Director in Charge Steven M. D’Antuono of the FBI Washington Field Office. Intelligence Community and our world companions to work swiftly and diligently to safeguard our national security data and hold accountable those who break our nation’s trust.”
Though the 2 by no means met in person, they typically spoke and texted one another using an unidentified safe messaging app and Thompson decided she would marry the man after she retired. During these conversations, the man claimed to have a nephew who worked in the Lebanese government, as nicely as to have been involved with members of Hezbollah. “The defendant’s choice to assist a foreign terrorist organization was a betrayal that endangered the lives of the very American men and women on the battlefield who had served beside her for more than a decade,” acting US legal professional Channing Phillips for the District of Columbia said. Thompson, sixty two, from Rochester, Minn., was a contracted linguist for a US Special Operations task force in Iraq and had high secret clearance. She agreed to plead responsible in change for leniency, a US Justice Department official stated in an announcement. Mariam Taha Thompson was arrested last yr in an espionage case that investigators said put the lives of American military members and confidential sources in danger and represented a significant breach of classified information.
It was taken at a really sunny day in my familys apartment.Im unsure what that claims about my memory but when Im remembering correctly, in her case she was diagnosed with epilepsy a condition that causes all types of bizarre and frightening unwanted side effects. Although Im unsure how that could presumably be related to pictures, she was additionally a photographer and Im undecided shed be ready to take a photograph without them. Thompson supplied her co-conspirator with the identities of no less than eight sources, at least biden wants schools open 5 days a week by may 10 US targets, and multiple ways, techniques and procedures. During this posting in 2017, she turned romantically involved with a person who mentioned he had ties to Hezbollah and the Lebanese government, prosecutors mentioned. CIA Director Mike Pompeo confirmed the commander of the Iranian Quds Force, Qasem Soleimani, declined to receive and skim a warning letter despatched by Pompeo. “The assassinations violate the conditions governing the presence of US forces in Iraq whose position is to train Iraqi forces and assist in the fight against Daesh as part of the Global Coalition, topic to the supervision and approval of the” Iraqi authorities.
Special Operations task force in Iraq was sentenced Wednesday to 23 years in prison in a rare terrorism espionage case, after she admitted she turned over names of informants and other classified data to a Lebanese man with ties to the militant group Hezbollah. A 61-year-old linguist who labored as a contractor for the Department of Defense was charged in Washington, D.C. On Wednesday for allegedly transmitting highly categorized information to a romantic curiosity with ties to a foreign terrorist organization. ‘Your honor, I love this nation, and I love our soldiers…I didn’t set out to damage them or do harm to our nationwide security. This allegedly included the names of American intelligence belongings, pictures and knowledge offered by the sources to the US government. But the linguist fell right into a honeytrap, sharing categorized details about human intelligence sources with a co-conspirator she had built a relationship with over a secure messaging application.
