Former CIA analyst pleads guilty to leaking Israeli retaliation plans
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(WASHINGTON) — A former CIA analyst arrested in November and charged with leaking highly classified records showing Israeli plans to launch a retaliatory strike on Iran pleaded guilty Friday in a federal court in Virginia.
Asif Rahman, 34, pleaded guilty to two counts of transmission of national defense information, according to court records.
Rahman faces up to 10 years in prison for the first count and up to three years for the second count. His sentencing was set for May 15.
Rahman admitted to accessing and printing out two documents regarding Israel’s retaliatory strike plans on Oct. 17 and transporting them to his residence, where he later uploaded images of them and provided them to “multiple individuals he knew were not entitled to receive them,” according to the plea agreement.
He later took various steps to try and conceal his involvement in the leak, even as authorities were able to track him down remarkably quickly given he was the only individual found to have printed out the documents, according to logs reviewed by investigators.
Rahman was arrested in Cambodia and later brought to Guam, according to the charging documents.
Rahman, a U.S. citizen, worked as an employee for the CIA starting in 2016.
In the days after the disclosure, Rahman deleted “approximately 1.5 gigabytes” of data from his personal folder in the Top Secret system, including scores of highly classified materials he had downloaded over the years — largely relating to the Middle East, according to prosecutors.
(WASHINGTON) — Even as crews continued to comb the Potomac River for the remains of victims, the Army Corps of Engineers began on Monday the delicate task of removing from the frigid water the wreckage of American Airlines Flight 5342 and a military Black Hawk helicopter that collided in midair last week near Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport.
With the roar of commercial jets taking off and landing from the airport’s nearby runway, and against the backdrop of the U.S. Capitol Building, the salvage operation began at the crack of dawn, officials said.
A large crane on a barge in the middle of the icy river had lifted one of the passenger plane’s engines and the aircraft’s crumpled fuselage from the river by noon, Col. Francis Pera of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Baltimore District, said at a news conference Monday afternoon. He said crews began lifting a wing of the passenger plane from the water at about 2:30 p.m.
The pieces were moved to a flatbed trailer to be taken on Tuesday to a nearby hanger where investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board will search for answers to what caused the deadliest U.S. air disaster in 16 years.
Pera said the goal for Tuesday is to bring the jet’s cockpit to the surface.
The crash killed 64 passengers and crew aboard the regional jet and the three-person flight crew aboard the Black Hawk, which was on a nighttime training mission when it crashed into the jet, officials said.
At least 55 victims have been removed from the river and positively identified by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, D.C. Assistant Fire Chief Gary Steen said at Monday afternoon’s news conference.
“Our process is committed to the dignified recovery of the remains of personnel and passengers of the flight,” Pera said.
During Monday’s operation, several work stoppages were ordered to recover multiple sets of remains amid the wreckage, Pera said. Those remains were removed and taken to the medical examiner for identification.
“Should any remains be found during our process, an automatic work stoppage happens and we will definitely begin to begin the proper coordination with the appropriate authorities. Reuniting those lost in the tragic incident is really what keeps us all going. We’ve got teams that have been working this since the beginning and we’re committed to making this happen,” Pera said.
He added that preparation for the salvage operation began on Friday, with divers equipped with multiple cameras surveying the submerged wreckage, focusing on large pieces of wreckage to remove from the river first. He said that during the survey on Saturday, remains were also recovered from the water.
“I just want to make sure that everyone is crystal clear in understanding that all salvage operations will be completed in close coordination with the Unified Command, all of our partners just really to ensure strict adherence to our central priority that the dignified recovery of missing flight passengers and personnel takes precedence,” Pera said at a news conference on Sunday.
Crews working with multiple agencies, including the Navy and 200 members of the U.S. Coast Guard, conducted rehearsals on the best way to remove the wreckage while simultaneously preparing for the discovery of more victims, according to Pera.
“We’ve got a wide debris field. Within that wide debris field, we’re employing different techniques to make sure we understand what’s in the water,” Pera said.
Family members of the crash victims were driven to the banks of the Potomac River on Sunday to pay respects to their lost loved ones. Among those killed in the crash were a civil rights attorney, a biology professor, several champion figure skaters and many others.
“These people have suffered a terrible loss and they’re grieving and I think that that’s exactly what you’d expect,” said Fire Chief John Donnelly of the Washington, D.C., Fire Department, who has visited with the families. “There’s a whole range of emotions in that. I would say they are a strong group of families that are focused on getting their loved ones back, and I think that’s the appropriate place to be at this point.”
If pieces of wreckage removed from the water contain remains, those pieces will be moved close to a barge and a tent will be erected so “we have full discretion and then we will bring in proper personnel to deal with at the time,” Pera explained.
Donnelly said that local teams will continue to search the shoreline and around the river to make sure that all the debris is collected.
“And if by chance as a member of the public you come across some of that, you should call 911 and report it to them and we will get it taken care of and get it examined,” Donnelly said.
Donnelly called the salvage and recovery mission a “tough operation” for those doing the work. He said each agency supporting the mission has peer counselors to help divers and others working to clear the river to cope with the grim task.
“For our first responders, all of the people that are coming in here to support, this is a tough operation — and if you are a responder listening to this, we want you to know that you can have a lot of different feelings about this, and there are people out here to help you,” Donnelly said.
(NEW ORLEANS) — President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden will head to New Orleans on Monday to meet with the families and community members impacted by the devastating truck attack that killed 14 and injured dozens, the White House said.
The suspect, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, drove a pickup truck onto a sidewalk and around a parked police car serving as a barricade to plow into pedestrians over a three-block stretch on Bourbon Street early on New Year’s Day, police said.
Jabbar then exited the damaged vehicle armed with an assault rifle and opened fire on police officers, law enforcement said. Officers returned fire, killing Jabbar. At least two officers were injured, authorities said.
FBI Deputy Assistant Director Christopher Raia called the attack a premeditated “act of terrorism” but said there was no additional threat to the public.
The FBI and Department of Homeland Security has issued a joint intelligence bulletin warning the nation’s 18,000 law-enforcement agencies about potential copycats, ABC News learned. The bulletin was sent out of an abundance of caution to sensitize law enforcement around the country to be on the lookout for any activity pointing to the use of vehicles as a method to inflict mass casualties, sources told ABC News.
“We advise federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial government and law enforcement officials and private sector security partners to remain vigilant of potential copycat or retaliatory attacks inspired by this attack and other recent, lethal vehicle-ramming incidents across the globe,” the bulletin said.
The bulletin notes that ISIS has been promoting the use of vehicles as a terrorism weapon since around 2014.
Sources told ABC News that ISIS has ramped up calls for its supporters to launch low-tech, mass casualty ramming attacks in recent months, especially since the most recent Israel-Hamas conflict began in October 2023.
Jabbar, a 42-year-old Army veteran and U.S.-born citizen from Texas, drove from Houston to New Orleans on Tuesday evening and posted several videos online “proclaiming his support for ISIS,” and mentioning he joined ISIS before this summer, Raia said.
The bulletin stated that Jabbar was inspired by ISIS but that there remains no evidence of any co-conspirators. A senior law-enforcement official told ABC News that there is so far no sign of ISIS claiming responsibility for the New Orleans attack.
“Law enforcement should be aware that in many cases attackers have conducted vehicle-ramming attacks with secondary weapons and may continue the attack with edged weapons, firearms, or IEDs after the vehicle has stopped,” the bulletin said. The tactic could be “attractive” for foreign terrorist organizations and other actors due to its low complexity threshold, the warning said.
An intelligence bulletin from the New York Police Department obtained by ABC News indicated that ISIS supporters did celebrate the attack online. Violent extremists, the bulletin said, “continue to view densely populated walkways, parades, mass gatherings and other outdoor events along streets, especially during holidays, as vulnerable targets of opportunity.”
“This enduring threat underscores the criticality of pre-staged blocker cars and the deployment of other effectively configured countermeasures including heavy block, barriers and bollards,” it added.
Surveillance footage showed Jabbar placing two improvised explosive devices in coolers in the Bourbon Street area, Raia said. He had a remote detonator in the truck to set off the two devices, Biden said. Both devices were rendered safe, officials said.
Bomb-making materials have been recovered at Jabbar’s Houston home, sources confirmed to ABC News. The items found were also referred to as “precursor chemicals” by agents in the field, sources said.
Law enforcement cleared and reopened Bourbon Street on Thursday as the investigation continued. New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell said authorities had the “confidence” to reopen the area to the public ahead of the Sugar Bowl Thursday afternoon, which was initially scheduled for Wednesday but postponed in the wake of the attack.
“I want to reassure the public that the city of New Orleans is not only ready for game day today, but we’re ready to continue to host large-scale events in our city,” she said. “Our hearts and prayers continue to go out to the victims’ families,” Cantrell added.
There is no apparent direct connection between the New Orleans attack and Wednesday’s Tesla Cybertruck explosion outside the Trump International Hotel Las Vegas, which is also being investigated as a possible act of terror, Raia from the FBI said Thursday.
(MADISON, N.J.) — The FBI is now involved in the investigation into a suspected arson earlier this month at the New Jersey home of a Bayer pharmaceutical executive, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
At approximately 7:30 a.m. on March 4, a fire was reported at an occupied, private residence in Madison, New Jersey, according to the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office.
The Madison Fire Department was able to quickly extinguish the flames and the structure “sustained no significant damage and there were no reported injuries,” according to the Morris County Prosecutor’s Office.
“The safety and security of our employees are of utmost importance to Bayer. The incident is under active investigation. We appreciate the quick response of local law enforcement,” Bayer said in a statement.
There have been no arrests related to the incident, officials said.
Bayer’s headquarters is located in nearby Hanover Township, New Jersey. The pharmaceutical company is known for products like Aleve and Alka-Seltzer.
The New York Police Department, Metropolitan Transportation Authority Police and New Jersey Transit Police are also part of the investigation.
The FBI’s Newark office declined to comment about its role in investigating the fire.
This suspected arson comes at a time of heightened concern in the health care industry following the December murder of United Healthcare CEO Brian Thompson.
Individuals mobilized by economic grievances are taking Thompson’s murder as inspiration for threats and attack plotting, expanding their target set to include government and public safety officials, according to a Homeland Security report obtained by ABC News.
“Within days of the late December murder of a health insurance CEO, we observed online threats targeting high-profile executives. In the past several weeks, some threats citing similar grievances and referencing the CEO’s murder as inspiration are now targeting federal, state and local government officials,” the document said.
A growing amount of Americans feel hostility toward prominent chief executives, with a 2023 Ipsos survey finding that more than two-thirds of Americans think the nation’s economy is rigged to the advantage of the rich and powerful.
Similarly, a 2022 Pew survey found that only 1 in 4 adults believed large businesses have a positive effect on the way things are going in the country.
