Richard Grenell, the acting Director of National Intelligence, has appointed two top female intelligence executives to coordinate America's counter-terror operations.
Grenell named Lora Shiao as acting director of the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), and she will become the agency's deputy director, pending Senate confirmation. Shiao previously served as the NCTC's executive director. She will be the first woman to run the NCTC.
Clare Linkins, formerly the director of strategic operational planning for NCTC, will move into Shiao's previous job as the NCTC's new executive director.
Amanda Schoch, the assistant director of national intelligence for strategic communications, remarked in a statement that Grenell is "excited and proud" to announce the promotions of Shiao and Linkins.
Schoch described the two women executives as "well-respected career intelligence officials, with deep analytic, operational, and leadership experience."
The appointment of the two top, longstanding intelligence-community experts is expected to ease any concern over the level of intelligence experience at DNI.
Shiao has over two decades of experience with the intelligence community. She previously worked with both the FBI and the DOD. From 2005 to 2007, her primary role was serving as the intelligence briefer for the U.S. attorney general and the FBI director. From 2015 to 2016, she was deputy director in charge of terrorist identities. Then, from 2016 to 2019, according to Schoch, she "led the center's all-source analysis of the capabilities and intentions of terrorist actors worldwide to inform national policymakers and support the effort of IC [intelligence community], military, law enforcement, and homeland security partners."
Shiao is expected to serve as the NCTC's acting director until the Senate can confirm Christopher Miller, a longtime Pentagon counterterrorism expert, for the top NCTC post.
Linkins is the former chief of NCTC's Tactics and Technology Group, focusing on threats in cyber and emerging technologies. She played a key role in the production of the 2018 U.S. National Strategy for Counterterrorism document.
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