JAKARTA - United States authorities are hard at work identifying and tracing, as classified documents leak online, with details ranging from Ukrainian air defenses to Israel's Mossad spy agency, while some experts say the source may be American.
Officials say the breadth of topics covered in the documents, which touch on wars in Ukraine, China, the Middle East and Africa, suggests the documents may have been leaked by Americans and not by their allies.
"The focus now is that this is a leak by the US, because a lot of those documents are solely in US hands," Michael Mulroy, a former senior Pentagon official, told Reuters in an interview, as reported April 10.
US officials said the investigation was in its early stages and those carrying out the investigation had not ruled out the possibility that pro-Russian elements were behind the leaks, which are seen as one of the most serious security breaches since more than 700.000 documents, videos and cables -diplomatic cables appeared on the WikiLeaks website in 2013.
The Russian Embassies in Washington and the Kremlin did not respond to requests for comment.
Following the revelation of the leak, Reuters has reviewed more than 50 documents labeled "Confidential" and "Top Secret" that first appeared last month on social media sites, starting with Discord and 4Chan. Although some of the documents were uploaded weeks ago, their existence was first reported Friday by the New York Times.
Reuters has not independently verified the authenticity of the documents. Some estimates of battlefield casualties from Ukraine appear to have been altered to minimize Russian losses. It's not clear why at least one document was marked declassified but included classified information. Some documents are marked "NOFORN," meaning they cannot be provided to foreign nationals.
Meanwhile, two US officials told Reuters on Sunday they did not rule out that the documents may have been fabricated to mislead investigators about their origin or to disseminate false information that could harm US security interests.
The White House referred those questions to the Pentagon.
In a statement on Sunday, the Pentagon said it was reviewing the validity of photographed documents that "appear to contain sensitive and highly classified material."
The Pentagon has referred the matter to the Department of Justice, which has opened a criminal investigation.
One of the documents, dated February 23 and marked "Confidential", outlines in detail how Ukraine's S-300 air defense systems will be exhausted by May 2 at current levels of use.
Such heavily guarded information could be of great use to Russian troops, and Ukraine said the president and his top security officials met on Friday to discuss ways to prevent leaks.
Another document, marked "Top Secret" and derived from CIA intelligence on March 1, says the Mossad intelligence agency encouraged protests against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plans to tighten controls on the Supreme Court.
The document said the US learned of this through intelligence signals indicating that the United States had been spying on one of its most important allies in the Middle East.
In a statement on Sunday, PM Netanyahu's office described the remarks as "absurd and completely baseless."
Another document provides details of internal discussions among senior South Korean officials about US pressure on Seoul to help supply weapons to Ukraine and its policy not to do so.
A South Korean presidential official said on Sunday it was aware of news reports about the leaked documents, planning to discuss "emerging issues" with Washington.
Meanwhile, South Korea's opposition lawmakers expressed "strong regret" over the spying accusations, calling it a clear violation of the country's sovereignty and a major security failure of President Yoon Suk-yeol's government.
"We strongly demand a thorough investigation and urgently prevent similar incidents from happening," the Democratic lawmakers said in a joint statement.
However, the Pentagon has so far not discussed the contents of specific documents, including the apparent surveillance of allies.
Two US officials who spoke on condition of anonymity said that despite concerns about leaks at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies, the documents showed footage from more than a month ago, and not a more recent assessment.
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The two officials said the military and intelligence agencies were looking at their processes to determine how widely some of the intelligence information was shared internally.
Officials are looking into the motivations of a US official or group of officials in leaking such sensitive information, one of the officials told Reuters.
The official said investigators saw four or five theories, ranging from disgruntled employees to insider threats actively seeking to undermine Washington's national security interests.
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