Senior Intelligence Analyst Honored for Rescue Efforts in Kabul

Marcus Yam | Los Angeles Times

Senior Intelligence Analyst Blerta Mucaj Wyatt of the Department of State Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) was honored Wednesday at WIFLE’s 22nd Annual Leadership Conference for providing intelligence that saved countless innocent lives as the Taliban overtook Kabul, Afghanistan.

Wyatt served as Chief of the Kabul Threat Intelligence Fusion Cell (TIFC) and Senior Analyst of the Regional Security Office (RSO) Intelligence Office at the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan from 2017 until August 31, 2021. Under Wyatt, the Kabul TIFC mobilized, coordinated, and advocated for improved intelligence integration across the intelligence community (IC). This improved coordination resulted in multiple life-saving decisions. 

As Senior Analyst of the RSO, Wyatt provided briefings to the embassy’s Emergency Action Committee, a group of interagency subject-matter experts who advised the Ambassador in preparing for and responding to threats, emergencies, and crises abroad.

Wyatt’s intelligence was integral in preventing loss of life from terror attacks in 2018.  In January 2018, Wyatt correctly correlated various reporting chains into a viable threat stream that indicated an imminent attack. Wyatt’s briefings as Senior Analyst of the RSO were instrumental in convincing the Ambassador to order a complete halt of all embassy compound movements for 72 hours.

During these 72 hours, a group of five terrorists attacked a hotel in Kabul, sparking a 12-hour battle that left forty lives lost including four non-government Americans. Fourteen others were injured in the attack.

Using the intelligence Wyatt provided in 2018, the embassy recalibrated their rocket strikes and, by June 2019, eliminated the terror threat at issue altogether.

As the Taliban descended on Kabul in 2021, Wyatt received intelligence from the network of established intelligence bodies that indicated an ongoing threat of possible terrorist attacks at the Kabul airport. Wyatt proactively collaborated with various intelligence agencies leading to the decision to pull people away from Abbey Gate, Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul.

As Wyatt’s intelligence indicated, there was a terror attack at Abbey Gate on August 26, 2021. Tragically, an ISIS-K suicide bomber attacked the Gate, killing 13 U.S. service members who were in the process of clearing the gate and over 170 Afghans.

Without the years of work Wyatt spent improving U.S. intelligence in the region, enhancing collaboration among IC agencies, and delivering key briefings to leadership, the decision to pull people away from Abbey Gate would have been delayed, resulting in significantly more loss of life.

While accepting the Women in Federal Law Enforcement (WIFLE) Elizabeth Smith Friedman Intelligence Award of Excellence, Wyatt took time to honor and remember the 13 service members lost in the Abbey Gate attack.

The WIFLE Elizabeth Smith Friedman Intelligence Award of Excellence honors federal law enforcement personnel, sworn and non-sworn, and full-time intelligence professionals for significant acts of exceptional levels of intelligence analysis to further investigative operations, secure a National Security Special Event (NSSE), reduce crime and prevent terrorism.

Smith-Friedman is the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives’ (ATF) first female Prohibition Investigator and accomplished Crypt-Analyst who fought threats of the prohibition era involving transnational organized crime syndicates that controlled liquor and narcotics smuggling.