Top secret U.S. intelligence outlining Israel's plans for an attack on Iran appear to have been leaked online in what would constitute a significant security breach if proved authentic.
Axios reported on Saturday that two alleged U.S. intelligence documents with details of Israeli preparations to hit back at Iran appeared on a Tehran-affiliated channel on messaging app Telegram. The channel's administrators said in a statement on Sunday that it was not linked to Iran, but run by a "tight-knit team of fully independent journalists."
The documents were marked "top secret," and dated October 15 to 16. The documents purport to show "key munitions preparations and covert UAV [uncrewed aerial vehicle] activity" and were described as being linked to a possible Israeli attack on Iran. At least one document appears to bear markings from the U.S.' National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency.
Newsweek has reached out to the Pentagon, the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and the Israeli Defense Ministry for comment.
Israel is still thought to be weighing up its response to Iran's attack at the start of October, when Tehran fired around 200 ballistic missiles at the country. The Israeli military said most of the missiles were intercepted, but that there was some minor damage.
In April, Iran launched more than 300 missiles and drones at Israel in its first-ever direct attack Israelis from Iranian territory. Tehran said the aerial assault was a retaliatory strike after seven members of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were killed in Damascus, the capital and largest city of Syria. Israel has not commented on the strike.
Three people familiar with the documents and the alleged leak told CNN that the U.S. is investigating the apparent leak, with one U.S. official describing the situation as "deeply concerning."
A U.S. defense official told Newsweek that the department is looking into the reports.
The Middle East Spectator Telegram channel, which posted the documents, said on Sunday that its administrators were "not aware of any additional leaked classified U.S. documents."
The channel has "no connection to the original source, which we assume to be a whistleblower within the U.S. Department of Defense," the administrators said. In an earlier statement, the channel said it was "not aware" of the leaker's identity, nor whether the documents were authentic.
One unnamed source familiar with the documents confirmed their authenticity, CNN reported.
The Middle East Spectator channel said the documents had first popped up in a private Telegram group with around 7,000 members, before the documents "found their way out of the group."
The channel came across the documents through an anonymous direct message, its administrators said, adding that similar messages were "sent to various other people and news outlets."
In late 2022 to early 2023, highly-classified U.S. intelligence was published on social media platform Discord in the broadest and most public intelligence leak in years. Jack Teixeira, who had served with the Massachusetts Air National Guard, pleaded guilty in federal court to retaining and transmitting classified National Defense Information.
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