Airman charged for disclosure

A young national guardsman has been charged with orchestrating the most damaging leak of United States' classified documents in a decade, as the government signaled it intends to make an example of the 21-year-old.

Jack Teixeira was arrested on Thursday following a weeklong probe into the leak of documents — which unveiled US concerns over Ukraine's ability in the conflict with Russia, and showed Washington has spied on its allies Israel and the Republic of Korea.

Yet, the US has had similar problems before, most notably when then secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton was forced to apologize for numerous embarrassing revelations in leaks of US diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks in 2010.

Regardless of the legal implications for Teixeira and the findings of the internal administrative investigation, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and top aides are unlikely to escape questioning about the leaks, which are at least the fourth from US sources since 2010.

Teixeira, who wore a beige jumpsuit and appeared glum at his first court appearance in Boston on Friday, was charged with the "unauthorized retention and transmission of national defense information".

He is also accused of the "unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents or material".The counts carry maximum prison sentences of 10 years and five years respectively.

The 2010 WikiLeaks release involved 251,287 State Department cables, written by 271 US embassies and consulates in 180 countries and were dated December 1966 to February 2010. The cables were passed by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to his three media partners, plus El Pais and others, and published in stages from Nov 28, 2010, with the names of sources removed.

Agencies via Xinhua