A federal jury found former Twitter employee Ahmad Abouammo guilty on Tuesday of spying for Saudi Arabia, using his access at the social media company to inform on the kingdom’s critics.

Abouammo was found guilty of acting as an unregistered foreign agent, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, money laundering, and falsifying records, according to Bloomberg news service.

The verdict comes after a two-week trial in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California. He is expected to face 10 to 20 years imprisonment upon sentencing.

Abouammo used his perch as Twitter media-partnerships manager for the Middle East and North Africa from 2013 to 2015 to hand over private information on Twitter users to the Saudi government in exchange for gifts and payments, according to prosecutors.

The information included phone numbers, device identifiers, and details about relationships.

The government showed the jury evidence that Abouammo collected a Hublot watch and $300,000 in wire transfers from an aide to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, according to Bloomberg.

The Justice Department first charged Abouammo with failing to register as a foreign agent and obstruction of justice in 2019. The government issued a new indictment in 2020 accusing him of more crimes, including wire fraud and money laundering.

Abouammo was not found guilty on charges involving his conduct with another former Twitter employee, according to Courthouse News.

Twitter declined to comment on Tuesday’s verdict.

President Biden on Tuesday signed the U.S.’ ratification of Finland and Sweden’s membership in NATO, offering what he said was “proof” that the Western alliance’s “door remains open to countries in Europe,” despite Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warning against further expansion. 

Mr. Putin justified his invasion of Ukraine in February in part as a rebuke to NATO, which has expanded steadily toward Russia in the decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union. But instead of sowing discord in the alliance, his war is poised to add two historically neutral new members to NATO and vastly expanded the alliance’s border with Russian territory.

With Mr. Biden’s signature, the U.S. is the 23rd of 30 current NATO allies to ratify the two countries’ accession into the alliance. Mr. Biden urged the remaining member countries to sign off on Finland and Sweden’s membership “as quickly as possible.”

“Putin thought he could break us apart,” Mr. Biden said. “Instead, he’s getting exactly what he did not want.”

The Senate approved the two Nordic countries’ membership last week by an overwhelming 95-1 margin, with the sole objection coming from Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, Missouri Republican, who argued that further NATO expansion will distract the U.S. from confronting China’s rising threat.

The vote marked a notable show of bipartisan support for the Western alliance’s expansion spurred on by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“In a moment when Putin’s Russia has shattered peace and security in Europe, when autocrats are challenging the very foundations of a rule-based order, the strength of the Transatlantic Alliance, and America’s commitment to NATO is more important than has ever been,” Mr. Biden said.

NATO‘s proposed expansion brings two high-tech, westernized military forces into the alliance. The addition of Finland would more than double the size of Russia’s land border with NATO countries.

Both countries, which have long resisted formal ties to NATO, submitted their bids to join the alliance in May. President Sauli Niinisto of Finland and Prime Minister Magdalena Andersson of Sweden said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made the post-World War II alliance increasingly vital to their countries’ security.

Both Sweden and Finland will require the endorsement of the remaining NATO members before beginning the process of joining the alliance. NATO officials in Brussels expect the accession period to go quickly.

Turkey initially opposed Finland and Sweden’s accession over the two countries’ approach toward the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a group that Ankara considers to be a terrorist group. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan lifted his country’s objections in a trilateral deal with Sweden and Finland which he announced at the start of the NATO summit in June.

The deal paved the way for Mr. Biden to send the ratification protocols to the Senate in July, and the Senate leadership rushed to approve the measure before adjourning for the August recess.

The war that sparked the NATO expansion drive ground on Tuesday, with Russian and Ukrainian forces battling for control across large swaths of Ukraine’s southern and eastern regions. The Associated Press reported that powerful explosions were heard at a Russian air base in Crimea, killing at least one person and several others were wounded, Russian authorities said.

Russia’s Defense Ministry denied the Saki base on the Black Sea had been shelled and said instead that munitions had blown up there. But Ukrainian social media sites were quick to claim the base was targeted by Ukrainian-fired long-range missiles.

Earlier Tuesday, Ukrainian officials reported at least three Ukrainian civilians were killed and 23 wounded by Russian shelling in 24 hours, including an attack close to the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the AP reported. Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of shelling the power station, Europe’s biggest nuclear plant, stoking international fears of a meltdown.

— This article was based in part on wire service reports.

Afghanistan’s former president didn’t make off with millions of dollars of American money last year, but other people likely did, a U.S. inspector general said Tuesday in a report detailing his yearlong effort to track down what happened.

John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, said former President Ashraf Ghani and his entourage did try to take money with them on their emergency flight out of the country, but it appears to have been left behind amid other luggage.

All told, it’s likely the entourage had less than $1 million aboard its four helicopters, and much of that was spent paying for the evacuation effort itself.

But Mr. Sopko and his team said there’s a good chance someone else did make off with a lot of money.

Some $5 million in cash left behind at the presidential palace went missing, as did potentially tens of millions of dollars in other government offices.

One former senior Afghan official told the inspector general that his cash-heavy department had about $39 million in its account, and in the week before the government fully collapsed on Aug. 15 he was being pressured to loot the money.

And the National Directorate of Security (NDS) may have had tens of millions of dollars in a vault that went missing in the final days, the audit said.

How much of the money originally came from American taxpayers is difficult to determine, Mr. Sopko said, since the security directorate never shared details of its budget.

“That being said, it remains a strong possibility that significant amounts of U.S. currency disappeared from Afghan government property in the chaos of the Taliban takeover — including millions from the presidential palace and the NDS vault,” investigators said.

“Attempts to loot other government funds appear to have been common. Yet with Afghan government records and surveillance videos from those final days likely in Taliban hands, SIGAR is unable to determine how much money was ultimately stolen, and by whom,” the audit concluded.

The probe was hamstrung by a host of issues, including the fact that there were few documentary sources available, which meant investigators had to rely on witnesses. In many cases, the witnesses were themselves accused by others of being involved in theft of the money.

Russian officials raised claims of stolen money in the wake of the Afghan government collapse, saying $169 million in cash flew out on board Mr. Ghani’s helicopters.

Investigators said they were able to rule that out based on sheer weight.

A block of $169 million in hundred-dollar bills would be larger than a three-seater couch and would weigh nearly two tons — far more capacity than the helicopters had, given the overload of people they were already carrying.

Besides, when the copters first landed in Uzbekistan authorities there cataloged everything, down to the contents of pockets and the bullets in the weapons carried by the Afghan security forces.

There was no evidence of a tranche of money, the inspector general concluded.

Investigators said the 54 people on the four helicopters had no more than $1 million, and likely closer to $500,000 with them. They paid $120,000 for a charter flight from Uzbekistan to the United Arab Emirates, where the remaining money was divided among the 54.

BEIJING — China said Monday it was extending threatening military exercises surrounding Taiwan that have disrupted shipping and air traffic and substantially raised concerns about the potential for conflict in a region crucial to global trade.

The exercises would include anti-submarine drills, apparently targeting U.S. support for Taiwan in the event of a potential Chinese invasion, according to social media posts from the eastern leadership of China’s ruling Communist Party’s military arm, the People’s Liberation Army.

The military has said the exercises involving missile strikes, warplanes and ship movements crossing the midline of the Taiwan Strait dividing the sides were a response to U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to the self-ruled island last week.

China has ignored calls to calm the tensions, and there was no immediate indication of when it would end what amounts to a blockade.

On Monday, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said China would “firmly safeguard China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, resolutely deter the U.S. from containing China with the Taiwan issue and resolutely shatter the Taiwan authorities’ illusion of “relying on the U.S. for independence.”

Taiwan’s defense ministry said Sunday it detected a total of 66 aircraft and 14 warships conducting the naval and air exercises. The island has responded by putting its military on alert and deploying ships, planes and other assets to monitor Chinese aircraft, ships and drones that are “simulating attacks on the island of Taiwan and our ships at sea.”

PHOTOS: China extends threatening military exercises against Taiwan

Meanwhile, Taiwan’s official Central News Agency reported that Taiwan’s army will conduct live-fire artillery drills in southern Pingtung county on Tuesday and Thursday, in response to the Chinese exercises.

The drills will include snipers, combat vehicles, armored vehicles as well as attack helicopters, said the report, which cited an anonymous source.

China claims Taiwan as its own territory and has threatened to annex it by force if necessary. The two sides split in 1949 after a civil war, but Beijing considers visits to Taiwan by foreign officials as recognizing its sovereignty.

Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen has called on the international community to “support democratic Taiwan” and “halt any escalation of the regional security situation.” The Group of Seven industrialized nations has also criticized China’s actions, prompting Beijing to cancel a meeting between Foreign Minister Wang Yi and his Japanese counterpart, Yoshimasa Hayashi.

China has cut off defense and climate talks with the U.S. and imposed sanctions on Pelosi in retaliation for her visit.

The Biden administration and Pelosi say the U.S. remains committed to the “one-China” policy that extends formal diplomatic recognition to Beijing while allowing robust informal relations and defense ties with Taipei.

The U.S., however, criticized Beijing’s actions in the Taiwan Strait, with White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre calling them “fundamentally irresponsible.”

“There’s no need and no reason for this escalation,” Jean-Pierre said.

In Washington, Taiwanese de facto ambassador Bi-khim Hsiao said China had no reason to “be so furious” over Pelosi’s visit, which follows a long tradition of American lawmakers visiting Taiwan.

“Well, you know, we have been living under the threat from China for decades,” Hsiao told CBS News on Sunday. “If you have a kid being bullied at school, you don’t say you don’t go to school. You try to find a way to deal with the bully.

“The risks are posed by Beijing,” Hsiao said.

On a visit to Myanmar, whose Chinese-backed military government has been accused of murdering its opponents, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Washington was “taking the opportunity to build up its military deployment in the region, which deserves high vigilance and resolute boycott from all sides.”

“China’s firm stance” is aimed at “earnestly safeguarding peace across the Taiwan Strait and regional stability,” Wang was quoted as saying by the official Xinhua News Agency.

Meanwhile, Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong called for a cooling of tensions. “Australia continues to urge restraint, Australia continues to urge deescalation, and this is not something that solely Australia is calling for, and the whole region is concerned about the current situation, the whole region is calling for stability to be restored,” Wong told reporters in Canberra.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — A fragile cease-fire deal to end nearly three days of fighting between Israel and Palestinian militants in Gaza held into Monday morning — a sign the latest round of violence may have abated.

The flare-up was the worst fighting between Israel and Gaza militant groups since Israel and Gaza’s Hamas rulers fought an 11-day war last year, adding to the destruction and misery that have plagued blockaded Gaza for years.

Since Friday, Israeli aircraft had pummeled targets in Gaza while the Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad militant group fired hundreds of rockets at Israel.

Over three days of fighting, 44 Palestinians were killed, including 15 children and four women, and 311 were wounded, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. Islamic Jihad said 12 of those killed were militants and Israel said some of the dead were killed by misfired rockets.

Israel on Monday said it was partially reopening crossings into Gaza for humanitarian needs and would fully open them if calm is maintained. Gaza’s lone power plant came back online Monday after fuel trucks entered a cargo crossing for the first time since the crossings with the strip were closed last week. The closure prompted a fuel shortage that ground the plant to a halt on Saturday. Gaza suffers from a chronic power crisis.

Life for hundreds of thousands of Israelis was disrupted during the violence. Security precautions imposed in recent days on residents of southern Israel were being gradually lifted Monday, the military said.

Both sides boasted of their successes. Speaking to reporters in Tehran on Sunday, Islamic Jihad leader Ziad al-Nakhalah said the militant group remained strong, despite losing two of its leaders. “This is a victory for Islamic Jihad,” he said.

Despite that claim, the group undoubtedly sustained a blow during Israel’s fierce offensive. Beyond losing the two leaders, it reduced its arsenal by firing hundreds of rockets without striking a single Israeli, thanks to Israel’s missile defense system that shot most of them down. Its own rockets may have killed several Gazans, according to Israel.

The cease-fire deal contained a promise that Egypt would work for the release of two senior Islamic Jihad detainees held by Israel, but there were no guarantees this would happen. The weekend fighting was also bound to complicate Islamic Jihad’s relations with Hamas.

A senior Israeli diplomatic official said the offensive had taken Islamic Jihad’s capabilities back “decades.” The flareup was “a successful counterterrorism operation” because Israel achieved its goals in a brief period of time. he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the operation with the media.

The violence had threatened to spiral into another all-out war but ended up being contained because Gaza’s ruling Hamas group stayed on the sidelines, possibly because it fears Israeli reprisals and undoing economic understandings with Israel, including Israeli work permits for thousands of Gaza residents, that bolster its control over the coastal strip.

Israel and Hamas have fought four wars since the group overran the territory in 2007.

Israel launched its operation with a strike Friday on a leader of the Islamic Jihad, saying there were “concrete threats” of an anti-tank missile attack against Israelis in response to the arrest last week of another senior Islamic Jihad member in the West Bank. That arrest came after months of Israeli raids in the West Bank to round up suspects following a spate of Palestinian attacks against Israel.

It killed another Islamic Jihad leader in a strike on Saturday.

Israel said some of the deaths during this round were caused by errant militant rocket fire, including one incident in the Jebaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza in which six Palestinians were killed Saturday. On Sunday, a projectile hit a home in the same area of Jebaliya, killing two men. Palestinians held Israel responsible, while Israel said it was investigating whether the area was struck by an errant rocket.

In the occupied West Bank on Monday, Israeli troops demolished the homes of two Palestinians suspected of carrying out a deadly attack against Israelis in the city of Elad in May. The soldiers faced a violent protest during the operation, the military said.

The outburst of violence in Gaza was a key test for Israel’s caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who lacks experience leading military operations. Still, he unleashed the offensive less than three months before a general election in which he is campaigning to keep the job.

President Joe Biden said he welcomed the cease-fire between Israel and Gaza-based militants.

“Over these last 72-hours, the United States has worked with officials from Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, and others throughout the region to encourage a swift resolution to the conflict,” he said in a statement Sunday.

The U.N. Security Council was to hold an emergency meeting Monday on the violence. China, which holds the council presidency this month, scheduled the session in response to a request from the United Arab Emirates, which represents Arab nations on the council, as well as China, France, Ireland and Norway.

“We underscore our commitment to do all we can towards ending the ongoing escalation, ensuring the safety and security of the civilian population, and following-up on the Palestinian prisoners file,” said U.N. Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Tor Wennesland, in a statement.

The Israeli army said militants in Gaza fired about 1,100 rockets toward Israel, with about 200 of them landing inside the Palestinian enclave. The army said its air defenses had intercepted 380 of them, including two fired toward Jerusalem. The military did not specify what happened to the remainder, but they likely fell in open areas or broke up in the air.

Islamic Jihad has fewer fighters and supporters than Hamas, and little is known about its arsenal. Both groups call for Israel’s destruction, but have different priorities, with Hamas constrained by the demands of governing.

Hamas had a strong incentive to avoid another war. Last year’s Israel-Hamas war, one of four major conflicts, and several smaller battles over the last 15 years, have exacted a staggering toll on the impoverished territory’s 2.3 million Palestinian residents.

Over the past year, Israel and Hamas have reached tacit understandings based on trading calm for work permits and a slight easing of the border blockade, imposed by Israel and Egypt when Hamas overran the territory 15 years ago. Israel has issued 12,000 work permits to Gaza laborers, and has held out the prospect of granting another 2,000 permits.

___

Goldenberg reported from Tel Aviv, Israel. Associated Press writer Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations contributed to this report.

In a recent closed-door meeting with leaders of the agency’s counterterrorism center, the CIA’s No. 2 official made clear that fighting al-Qaida and other extremist groups would remain a priority – but that the agency’s money and resources would be increasingly shifted to focusing on China.

The CIA drone attack that killed al-Qaida’s leader showed that fighting terrorism is hardly an afterthought. But it didn’t change the message the agency’s deputy director, David Cohen, delivered at that meeting weeks earlier: While the U.S. will continue to go after terrorists, the top priority is trying to better understand and counter Beijing.

One year after ending the war in Afghanistan, President Joe Biden and top national security officials speak less about counterterrorism and more about the political, economic and military threats posed by China as well as Russia. There’s been a quiet pivot within intelligence agencies, which are moving hundreds of officers to China-focused positions, including some who were previously working on terrorism.

The last week makes clear that the U.S. has to deal with both at the same time. Days after Ayman al-Zawahri was killed in Kabul, China staged large-scale military exercises and threatened to cut off contacts with the U.S. over House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan.

The U.S. has long been alarmed by China’s growing political and economic ambitions. China has tried to influence foreign elections, mounted campaigns of cyber and corporate espionage, and detained millions of minority Uyghurs in camps. Some experts also think Beijing will in coming years try to seize the self-ruled democratic island of Taiwan by force.

Intelligence officials have said they need more insights on China, including after being unable to definitively pinpoint the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic. Beijing has been accused of withholding information about the origins of the virus.

And the war in Ukraine has underscored Russia’s importance as a target. The U.S. used declassified information to expose Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war plans before the invasion and rally diplomatic support for Kyiv.

Supporters of the Biden administration approach note that the U.S. was able to track and kill al-Zawahri is evidence of its capabilities to target threats in Afghanistan from abroad. Critics say the fact that al-Zawahri was living in Kabul, under the apparent protection of the Taliban, suggests there’s a resurgence of extremist groups that America is ill-equipped to counter.

The shift in priorities is supported by many former intelligence officers and lawmakers from both parties who say it’s overdue. That includes people who served in Afghanistan and other missions against al-Qaida and other terrorist groups.

Rep. Jason Crow, a former Army Ranger who served in Afghanistan and Iraq, said he believed the U.S. had been overly focused on counterterrorism over the last several years.

“A far greater existential threat is Russia and China,” said Crow, a Colorado Democrat who serves on the House Intelligence and Armed Services committees. Terrorist groups, he said, “will not destroy the American way of life … the way China can.”

CIA spokesperson Tammy Thorp noted that terrorism “remains a very real challenge.”

“Even as crises such as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and strategic challenges such as that posed by the People’s Republic of China demand our attention, CIA will continue to aggressively track terrorist threats globally and work with partners to counter them,” Thorp said.

Congress has pushed the CIA and other intelligence agencies to make China a top priority, according to several people familiar with the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive intelligence matters. Pushing resources toward China has required cuts elsewhere, including in counterterrorism. Specific figures were unavailable because intelligence budgets are classified.

In particular, lawmakers want more information about China’s development in advanced technologies. Under President Xi Jinping, China has committed trillions of dollars in investment on quantum science, artificial intelligence and other technologies that are likely to disrupt how future wars are fought and economies are structured.

As part of the shift, congressional committees are trying to better track how intelligence agencies spend their funding on China, seeking more detail about how specific programs contribute to that mission, one person familiar with the matter said.

“We are late, but it’s good that we’re finally changing our focus into that region,” said Rep. Chris Stewart, a Utah Republican who serves on the House Intelligence Committee. “That means in people, in resources, in military assets, and in diplomacy.”

The CIA last year announced it would create two new “mission centers” – one on China, one on emerging technologies – to centralize and improve intelligence collection on those issues. The CIA is also trying to recruit more Chinese speakers and reduce wait times on security clearances to hire new people faster.

Inside the agency, many officers are learning Chinese and moving into new roles focused on China, though not all of those jobs require language training, people familiar with the matter said.

Officials note that intelligence officers are trained to adapt to new challenges and that many were moved more quickly into counterterrorism roles after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Advances from counterterrorism work – including better use of data and different sources of intelligence to build networks and identify targets – are also useful in countering Russia and China, former officers said.

“It’s the analytics and targeting machine that has become extraordinary,” said Douglas Wise, a former CIA senior officer who was deputy chief of operations at the counterterrorism center.

The CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, renamed the Counterterrorism Mission Center in a 2015 reorganization, remains a point of pride for many people who credit its work for keeping Americans safe from terrorism after Sept. 11. CIA officers landed in Afghanistan on Sept. 26, 2001, and were part of operations to displace the Taliban and find and kill leaders of al-Qaida including Osama bin Laden.

And 13 years after a double agent tricked officers pursuing al-Zawahri and blew himself up, killing seven agency employees, the CIA killed him in a strike with no reported civilian casualties.

The CIA was also involved in some of the darkest moments of the fight against terrorism. It operated secret “black site” jails to hold terrorism suspects, some wrongly, and was found by a Senate investigation to have used interrogation methods that amounted to torture. Elite Afghan special operations units trained by the CIA were also accused of killing civilians and violating international law.

There’s long been a debate over whether counterterrorism pulled intelligence agencies too far away from traditional spying and whether some of the CIA’s work in targeting terrorists should instead be done by special forces under the military.

Marc Polymeropoulos is a retired CIA operations officer and former base chief in Afghanistan. He said he supports a greater focus on China and Russia but added, “There’s no reason to diminish what we had to do.”

“This notion that somehow all the CT work we did, somehow that was wrong, that we took our eye of the ball – just remember on Sept. 12 what everyone was feeling,” he said.

Re-orienting the agencies toward more of a focus on China and Russia will ultimately take years and require both patience and recognition that the agency’s culture will take time to change, Wise said.

“For decades, we have been doing counterterrorism,” Wise said. “We’ve got to have a rational plan to make this adaptation, which doesn’t take so long that our enemies can exploit a glacial process.”