Lebanese-American Christine S. Abizaid has been nominated by the United States President Joe Biden to be the Director of the National Counterterrorism Center at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence.
Abizaid, a former Pentagon official, has spent nearly a decade as a counterterrorism intelligence officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency, according to a statement by the White House.
She served at the National Security Council as the Director for Counterterrorism and as the Senior Policy Advisor to the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism during the Obama administration.
According to the statement, she has also served as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia, and later lead the Defense Innovation Unit in Texas.
Abizaid currently works for Dell Technologies as an executive in its Global Operations organization.
She comes from a family of Lebanese-Americans that have served to defend the U.S. government.
Her father, John P. Abizaid, is a retired U.S. Army General who served as the head of the U.S. military’s Central Command and later as the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the Trump administration. Her grandfather was a Navy machinist during World War II.
Christine S. Abizaid would be the first woman to lead the National Counterterrorism Center if confirmed by the Senate.
