Eli Lake, Columnist

Montenegro Takes On Russia, America and a Former CIA Officer

The tiny country’s prosecution of the plotters of a failed 2016 coup makes some big allegations.

August 14, 2018 at 5:00 AM UTC

Eli Lake is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering national security and foreign policy. He was the senior national security correspondent for the Daily Beast and covered national security and intelligence for the Washington Times, the New York Sun and UPI.

Small country, big ambitions. — Small country, big ambitions.
Photographer: Savo Prelevic/AFP/Getty Images

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It sounds like a spy novel. A former CIA case officer joins a cabal of pro-Russian rebels attempting to kill the prime minister of a small Balkan country. The coup fails, the officer returns to the U.S. — and now authorities in the Balkans want the former spy for questioning.

Last week Montenegro announced it is seeking extradition of the retired U.S. spy, Joseph Assad, for his role in an attempted coup there in 2016. If the allegations are true, this story has a twist worthy of an airport-bookstore thriller: The U.S. and Russia may be rivals, but when it comes to Montenegro, they are secret collaborators.