Former CIA Officer Breaks Down Source Operations in Afghanistan | Delbert Roll
6/6/20261 hr 58 min
Former Army officer and CIA operations officer Delbert Roll joins us to discuss his path from Third Special Forces Group to the Agency, including joining CIA just before 9/11 and working counterterrorism operations in Afghanistan. He breaks down CIA training, running sources, building targeting packages against al-Qaeda, working with JSOC and indigenous forces, and the realities of protecting assets in the field.
The episode also covers covert action, counterintelligence, counter-WMD work, teaching at the Farm, CIA bureaucracy, writing after retirement, and the bizarre CIA gold bar scandal.
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00:00 — Start / Delbert Roll joins The Team House
01:10 — Growing up in Pennsylvania and joining the Army
07:06 — Third Special Forces Group, Africa missions, and comms work in the 1990s
15:09 — Leaving the Army and trying to join the FBI before the CIA
16:04 — Joining CIA three weeks before 9/11
21:09 — The day after 9/11 and CIA’s shift toward counterterrorism
23:46 — Moving from analyst to operations officer
25:20 — CIA training and “Ranger School for your brain”
30:42 — First Afghanistan tour and arriving at a forward operating base
33:22 — Running a source operation against a senior al-Qaeda target
39:13 — Building a targeting package without GPS coordinates
44:40 — Airstrike decision, protecting assets, and the target slipping away
48:54 — Working with JSOC and indigenous forces to shut down rat lines
52:47 — CIA support to conventional Army units in Afghanistan
56:17 — Language training, European posting, and traditional case officer work
01:04:25 — Covert action, liaison partners, and gathering intelligence through proxies
01:05:05 — Counterintelligence, recruiting foreign officers, and disrupting Russian operations
01:09:07 — Counter-WMD work and handling sources without being the technical expert
01:12:50 — Teaching at the Farm and training future CIA officers
01:22:29 — CIA bureaucracy, NSA comparisons, and publication review problems
01:27:58 — Recruiting, technology, and learning how to talk around classified subjects
01:28:57 — From CIA officer to fantasy, spy, and horror novelist
01:43:42 — CIA gold bars, non-traditional payments, and final thoughts
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Clips
Transcript preview
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Jack Murphy· Host0:59
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