THREAD: American friends, how many of you are aware that Ethiopia managed to plant a mole in the US State Department who transferred classified US intelligence docs to Ethiopian officials from 2022 to 2023?
Well that's the allegation listed in a complaint unsealed last September.
In Sept 2022, the Ethiopian gov official received classified satellite imagery said to show military compounds of rebel forces in Ethiopia. He urged Abraham to continue sending imagery of rebel postions saying:
"in few days we will achieve
the critical milestones."
This is consistent with the upscale in fighting & victories scored by Ethiopian forces against Tigrayan rebels in September-October 2022.
I covered the upscale in fighting for The Telegraph back then.
Here is the affidavit. A bit mindboggling that Abraham was able to make fishy deposits worth around $55,000 from Jan 2022 - July 2023, copy/paste, transfer material & delete evidence, all while making trips back and forth to Ethiopia (at a time when ties between the 2 were at their lowest in decades) without raising an alarm. Of course, the FBI could have been observing him. But if they were, then they willingly observed the transfer of sensitive docs without intervening. https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/23988722/abraham-teklu-lemma-affidavit.pdf
Why am I bringing this up months after it made headlines?
For the most part, the stories focused on Abraham and his attempts to influence the civil war with Tigray.
But a rereading has me thinking it could have been international.
The affidavit reads that the Ethiopian official accessed Abraham's encrypted accounts from Ethiopia repeatedly from April 13th onwards, which he did when receiving classified US docs. This was the reported method for transferring files to Ethiopia.
At the time, Abraham was visiting Ethiopia and had scheduled to meet with the official at a hotel.
In a text message sent on April 17th 2023, Abraham told the official:
“I hope we’re using current [Country A]
situations for our advantage.”
The affidavit doesn't identify "country A" except to say that it's a country that "shares a border with the Relevant Country." The Relevant Country being Ethiopia.
While the country isn't specified, it is highly likely that Abraham was referring to Sudan, where the destructive war between the Sudanese army and RSF had broken out 48 hours prior to Abraham's text.
None of the other countries sharing a border with Ethiopia had experienced anything as remarkable during that time period.
Ethiopia and Sudan have sparred over the Al Fashaga strip of land on their common border. Both countries lay claim to the land and its great agricultural produce. Prior to 2020, farmers from both countries resided on it, although armed raids by militias from both sides had grown frequent over the years.
Despite numerous skirmishes over Al Fashaga, neither side was ever willing to declare war and launch an all out assault to claim it.
In November 2020, Ethiopia was plunged into civil war after its army sent troops to fight Tigrayan forces. With the country's armed forces preoccupied with fighting in the north, Sudan seized the opportunity and launched an assault on Al Fashaga, capturing the strip of land in its entirety by December. It was the first time in 25 years that Sudanese forces patrolled the land unchallenged. Ethiopia denounced the move, but bogged down in Tigray, was unable to retaliate.
Skirmishes continued for months, and Sudan closed its airspace on the border for a while. Eventually, with Ethiopia preoccupied, fighting died down. Still, in Ethiopian nationalist discourse, the idea of reclaiming Al Fashaga when the time is right is still brought up as an agenda topic.
So when Abraham texted the official “I hope we’re using current [Country A] situations for our advantage,” shortly after corresponding via the device known to transfer US intelligence reports and satellite imagery to Ethiopian officials....it appears that he was hinting at Ethiopia seizing the chance to attack and reclaim the Al Fashaga strip while Sudan is preoccupied with RSF rebels, the same scenario of late 2020 but with the roles switched.
Abraham Teklu Lemma's account activity and his comments suggest that he may have accessed satellite imagery showing Sudanese positions in Al Fashaga and passed them on to Ethiopia. Only speculating obviously.
Nevertheless, on April 19th, two days after Abraham's text, Sudanese media reported that Ethiopian forces, including army infantry, tanks and irregular militia, launched an assault on Al Fashaga, with the goal of retaking it.
The Ethiopian attack was reportedly repulsed. After analysts and commentators began accusing Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed of attempting to take advantage of Sudan's conflict, Abiy issued a statement denying that he ordered an attack on Al Fashaga. Hardly convincing though.
Al Fashaga remains in Sudanese control despite the raging war, and Ethiopian forces have not attempted a repeat of the ill fated April 19th assault.
Could it be that intelligence obtained from the DC based spy on the clock for the US State Department facilitated that attempt to take Al Fashaga?
Who knows, we may never find out. I'm wondering how much of the details at trial will ever be revealed, considering the likelihood that it would further compromise US intelligence interests.
It appears clear that for Abraham, his motivations were purely patriotic in that acted in the best interests of his country of birth.
He was praised in a text by his handler who told him:
“[a]lways this beautiful country have [sic] some special people
who scarify [sic] their life to protect our proud history. You always remembered. It doesn’t matter the results.”
He may have thought going down in history as a martyr (in addition to 55k$) may have made it worth the extremely high risk.
The problem? 2022 in Ethiopia, was a long time ago. A lot has changed.
Ethiopian nationalists have since 2023, fallen out with the Ethiopian government. The patriotic right wing, which defended the government & Prime Minister Abiy against allegations of war crimes & genocide, are now his staunch critics calling for his overthrow.
Abraham Teklu Lemma remains in prison though. Martyrdom for an Abiy led government no longer has the patriotic appeal it guaranteed in 2022.
I'll be keeping an eye out for updates on Abraham's espionage trial, and will post them as they come. That's the story of how Ethiopia infiltrated the US State Department, which may have had repercussions for Sudan as well.