AL UDEID AIR BASE, Qatar — When Navy Lt. William Conway is piecing together clues about a new Taliban or Islamic State terrorist cell in Afghanistan, he often falls back on skills he learned hauling crooks, swindlers and embezzlers into court in Chicago.

Lieutenant Conway is not your typical military intelligence analyst. A former state prosecutor in Chicago, he comes armed for his sleuthing duties with a law degree from Georgetown University and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago. Not to mention an undergraduate degree in accounting from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.

All of which made Lieutenant Conway the right person at the right time, despite his relatively junior rank. He arrived at this air command center in August on Navy reservist duty to lead an Afghanistan intelligence team just as the Trump administration was ramping up its air and ground campaigns there.

“Working complicated embezzlement cases, it took a lot of time trying to trace individual transactions, how crimes had occurred or how a person was able to steal so much,” Lieutenant Conway said in an interview. “I use the same skills here, getting little nuggets of intelligence all the time — some important, some not — then weaving them together into a narrative.”