US scrambles to trace source of intel breach

Leaked documents reveal Washington's spying, highly sensitive analyses on allies

WASHINGTON — Classified documents that appeared online, with details ranging from Ukraine's air defenses to Israel's Mossad spy agency, have the United States scrambling to identify the leak's source, with some experts saying it could be a US citizen.

Officials said the breadth of topics addressed in the documents, which touch on the Russia-Ukraine conflict, China, the Middle East and Africa, suggest they may have been leaked by a US citizen rather than an ally.

Defense analysts said any breach of internal classified US documents would be both damaging and potentially embarrassing.

A steady drip of dozens of leaked documents and slides have made their way onto Twitter, Telegram, Discord and other sites in recent days, and new documents continue to surface.

The latest breach is seen as one of the most serious security breaches since more than 700,000 documents, videos and diplomatic cables appeared on the WikiLeaks website in 2013.

US officials told The Washington Post that some documents appeared to have been manipulated, but many were consistent with CIA World Intelligence Review reports that are shared at high levels within the White House, Pentagon and State Department.

"The focus now is on this being a US leak, as many of the documents were only in US hands," Michael Mulroy, a former senior Pentagon official, told Reuters.

US officials said the investigation is in its early stages.

Following disclosure of the leak, Reuters has reviewed more than 50 documents labeled "Secret" and "Top Secret" that first appeared last month on social media websites. While some of the documents were posted weeks ago, their existence was first reported on Friday by The New York Times.

The White House referred questions to the Pentagon.

While the Defense Department is still reviewing the validity of photographed documents circulating online, they "appear to contain sensitive and highly classified material", Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh said in a statement.

Essential impact

"An interagency effort has been stood up, focused on assessing the impact these photographed documents could have on US national security and on our allies and partners," Singh said.

One of the documents, dated Feb 23 and marked "Secret", outlines in detail how Ukraine's S-300 air defense systems would be depleted by May 2 at the current usage rate.

The leak would prove valuable to Moscow by showing how deep US intelligence has penetrated parts of the Russian military apparatus, US media commented.

Another document, marked "Top Secret" and from a CIA Intel update from March 1, said the Mossad intelligence agency was encouraging protests against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plans to tighten controls on the Supreme Court.

The document said the US learned this through signals intelligence, suggesting the US had been spying on one of its most important allies in the Middle East.

In a statement on Sunday, Netanyahu's office described the assertion as "mendacious and without any foundation whatsoever".

Another document gave details of internal discussions among senior South Korean officials about US pressure on Seoul to help supply weapons to Kyiv, and its policy of not doing so.

The office of South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said on Monday that fact checks on the documents are a priority and that it would request the US to take "appropriate" steps after confirming details.

Some lawmakers of South Korea's main opposition Democratic Party expressed "strong regret "over the spying allegations, calling them a clear violation of national sovereignty and a major security failure of the Yoon administration.

"We strongly demand a thorough investigation and urge that similar incidents do not occur," the lawmakers said in a joint statement.

The Pentagon has not addressed the contents of any specific documents, including the apparent surveillance of allies.

Investigators are looking at what motivations a US official or a group of officials would have in leaking such sensitive information, from a disgruntled employee to an insider threat who actively wanted to undermine US national security interests, Reuters reported.

On Monday, the Kremlin said there was a general tendency to always blame Russia for everything when asked about some Western accusations that Moscow may have been behind the leak.

Agencies via Xinhua