President Donald Trump risked the life of an Israeli spy embedded in the ISIS by sharing classified information with Russia, former US and Israeli officials believe.
"The spy provided intelligence involving an active ISIS plot to bring down a passenger jet en route to the United States, with a bomb hidden in a laptop that US officials believe can get through airport screening machines undetected," ABC News reported.
"The information was reliable enough that the US is considering a ban on laptops on all flights from Europe to the United States," it said.
The president's disclosure put the operative for one of the US' closest allies at risk and jeopardised future operations by sharing the information with Russia.
"The real risk is not just this source, but future sources of information about plots against us," Matt Olsen, former Director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told ABC.
Many in the counter-terrorism community also feel that what the president did was a mistake as Russia is not the part of a coalition fighting against the Islamic State (ISIS).
"They are not our partner".
Dan Shapiro, the former US ambassador to Israel, now a senior visiting fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv, called the president and his team "careless". He said that the reported disclosures demonstrate a "poor understanding of how to guard sensitive information".
No comments:
Post a Comment