Contract linguist who worked for US military pleads guilty to leaking classified information

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A woman who worked as a contract linguist for the U.S. military in Iraq pleaded guilty to leaking classified information to a foreign government. 

The woman leaked the information to a romantic interest linked to the Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah. 

Mariam Taha Thompson, formerly of Rochester, Minnesota, was arrested last year in the espionage case. The Department of Justice said her actions jeopardized the lives of U.S. service members and others.

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Thompson now faces up to life in prison. She is scheduled to be sentenced June 23. 

Thompson, 63, had tried to provide the Hezbollah-linked Lebanese man with information on the human intelligence sources who had helped the U.S. tracked down and kill Iran's top general, Qassem Soleimani in January 2020.

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Investigators say Thompson accessed dozens of files about human sources, including their names, photographs, background information and operational cables that described the information they had gathered. She agreed to provide the classified information to the man; officials say she had planned to marry him, and was afraid he would end her relationship if she did not cooperate.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.