The head of the US National Security Agency dismissed

The dismissal of Gen. Timothy Haugh, who also leads US Cyber Command — the military’s offensive and defensive cyber unit — is a major shakeup of the US intelligence community which is navigating significant changes in the first two months of the Trump administration. Wendy Noble, Haugh’s deputy at NSA, was also removed, according to the former officials and lawmakers.

It wasn’t immediately clear why Haugh and Noble were fired. Lt. Gen. William Hartman, an experienced military officer and the deputy of Cyber Command, is expected to serve as acting head of the command and NSA, the two former officials said.

The news of the dismissals came on the heels of the firing of multiple staff members on the National Security Council, after Laura Loomer, the far-right activist who once claimed 9/11 was an inside job, urged President Donald Trump during a Wednesday meeting to do so, arguing that they were disloyal. It was not clear whether the firings were connected.

Last month, Haugh hosted billionaire Elon Musk, who oversees the Department of Government Effiiciency, at the NSA and Cyber Command headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland.

Some current and former defense officials say there is a growing culture of fear inside the officer ranks within the Defense Department, among officials who worry that they could be fired at any moment for conduct deemed insufficiently loyal to Trump.

Haugh was not in the now-infamous group chat on the messaging app Signal, in which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other top officials discussed a sensitive military operation targeting the Houthis in Yemen while unaware that a journalist was part of the group. At a House Intelligence Committee hearing last week where Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and CIA Director John Ratcliffe were grilled about the Signal group chat debacle, Haugh testified that, in general, there are risks to using the app.

Top congressional Democrats protested against the reported firing of Gen Tim Haugh.

Senator Mark Warner, vice-chair of the Senate intelligence committee, said in a statement: “General Haugh has served our country in uniform, with honor and distinction, for more than 30 years. At a time when the United States is facing unprecedented cyber threats … how does firing him make Americans any safer?”

Representative Jim Himes, the ranking member on the House intelligence committee, said he was “deeply disturbed by the decision”.

Renée Burton, a cybersecurity expert who spent more than two decades at NSA, called the news of Haugh and Burton’s ouster “alarming.”