Washington, April 11: US Intelligence Officials on Monday were scrambling to trace the source of the leak of classified Intelligence report on Ukraine’s air defences and Israel’s spy organization Mossad. “The leaks posed a serious threat to the US national security,” Pentagon said.
According to the officials, the breadth of topics addressed in the documents, which touch on the war in Ukraine, China, West Asia and Africa, suggest they may have been leaked by an American rather than an ally.
“The focus now is on this being a US leak, as many of the documents were only in the US hands,” Michael Mulroy, a former Pentagon official has said. US officials said the investigation is in its early stages and those running it have not ruled out the possibility that pro-Russian elements were behind the leak.
Following the 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.
Reuters has not independently verified the authenticity of the documents. Some giving battle-field casualty estimates from Ukraine appeared to have been altered to minimize Russian losses. It is not clear as to why at least one is marked unclassified but includes top-secret information. Some documents are marked “NOFORN” meaning that they cannot be released to foreign nationals.
One of the documents marked “secret” outlines in detail how Ukraine’s S – 300 air defense systems would be depleted by May 2 at the current usage rate. Another document marked “top secret” and from a CIA Intel Update from March 1, says the Mossad Intelligence Agency was encouraging protests against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“The document said the US learned this through signals intelligence, suggesting the United States had been spying on one of its most important allies in West Asia,” Michael Mulroy added.
Irrespective of whether the documents are sensitive or otherwise, the fact that certain documents have been leaked and have found its way to several websites, by itself, is a grave and serious matter, as Intelligence Report are considered to be highly classified and confidential.
Who is the mole in the CIA is what the Pentagon officials are scrambling to find out.
EOM
