US Military Translator Confesses to Spying for Lebanese National Connected to Hezbollah

A vehicle hit by a missile burns outside the Baghdad International Airport, where US strikes killed Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran's Quds Force. (AP)
A vehicle hit by a missile burns outside the Baghdad International Airport, where US strikes killed Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran's Quds Force. (AP)
TT
20

US Military Translator Confesses to Spying for Lebanese National Connected to Hezbollah

A vehicle hit by a missile burns outside the Baghdad International Airport, where US strikes killed Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran's Quds Force. (AP)
A vehicle hit by a missile burns outside the Baghdad International Airport, where US strikes killed Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran's Quds Force. (AP)

A former US military translator pleaded guilty Friday of divulging classified information to a Lebanese national with suspected ties to the Lebanese Hezbollah, reported Voice of America.

Mariam Taha Thompson, 63, who worked as a contract linguist for the US military from 2006 to 2020, pleaded guilty to one count of delivering national defense information to aid a foreign government.

She faces a maximum penalty of life in prison. Her sentencing is scheduled for June 23.

Thompson, who was born in Lebanon and became a US citizen in 1993, was arrested in February 2020 at a US special operations base in Erbil, Iraq.

Prosecutors say she used her top-secret clearance to pass the names of US intelligence assets to the Lebanese national in whom she had a romantic interest and whom she believed would share the information with Hezbollah, reported VOA.

Hezbollah was designated as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997.

According to court documents, the unnamed Lebanese national, described as “wealthy and well-connected,” claimed to have received a ring from Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and had a nephew who worked in the Lebanese Ministry of Interior.

After a US air strike killed Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani in December 2019, the Lebanese national, her unindicted co-conspirator, asked Thompson to provide Hezbollah with information about the human assets who had helped the US target Soleimani, according to prosecutors.

Over a six-week period leading up her arrest in February 2020, Thompson provided the Lebanese national with the identities of at least 10 clandestine human assets; at least 20 US targets; and multiple tactics, techniques and procedures, according to the Justice Department.

“Thompson jeopardized the lives of members of the US military as well as other individuals supporting the United States in a combat zone when she passed classified information to a person she knew was connected to Lebanese Hezbollah, a foreign terrorist organization which intended to use the information to hurt this country,” Assistant Attorney General John C. Demers said in a statement.



Iran's Khamenei Says Gaza Brought Israel 'to Its Knees' 

This handout picture provided by the the office of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei shows him greets attendees during a meeting with officials in Tehran on January 28, 2025. (KHAMENEI.IR/AFP)
This handout picture provided by the the office of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei shows him greets attendees during a meeting with officials in Tehran on January 28, 2025. (KHAMENEI.IR/AFP)
TT
20

Iran's Khamenei Says Gaza Brought Israel 'to Its Knees' 

This handout picture provided by the the office of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei shows him greets attendees during a meeting with officials in Tehran on January 28, 2025. (KHAMENEI.IR/AFP)
This handout picture provided by the the office of Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei shows him greets attendees during a meeting with officials in Tehran on January 28, 2025. (KHAMENEI.IR/AFP)

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said Tuesday that Gaza had brought Israel "to its knees", in a reference to the recent ceasefire in the Palestinian territory.

The ceasefire and hostage-release deal between Iran's arch-enemy Israel and the Tehran-backed group Hamas went into effect just over a week ago, aiming to put an end to more than 15 months of war.

"The small, limited Gaza brought the Zionist regime, armed to the teeth, and fully supported by America, to its knees," Khamenei said during a meeting with officials in Tehran.

Also on Tuesday, Iran's foreign ministry spokesman, Esmaeil Baqaei, criticized US President Donald Trump's idea to move Palestinians out of Gaza to other locations such as Egypt or Jordan.

"Political coercion and demographic manipulations will not be able to force the Palestinians to migrate," Baqaei said in a post on X, adding that Gaza is the Palestinians' "homeland and they've paid (an) extremely high price to remain there".

The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack, which resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Fighters also took 251 hostages, 87 of whom remain in Gaza, including dozens Israel says are dead.

Israel's retaliatory offensive has killed over 47,000 people in Gaza, the majority civilians, according to figures from the Hamas-run territory's health ministry that the United Nations considers reliable.