The News
A CIA official has been charged with leaking classified documents that showed Israel’s military preparations for a possible strike on Iran, The New York Times reported.
The official, Asif W. Rahman, was indicted last week in a Virginia federal court, and arrested by the FBI on Tuesday in Cambodia.
The highly classified documents were prepared by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, and showed an analysis of satellite imagery depicting Israeli military facilities.
The documents first started to circulate on pro-Iranian Telegram channels last month, and one of them alludes to the Israeli nuclear weapons program, which US officials do not publicly acknowledge. The secret information also outlined Israeli munitions movements and air force exercises.
“This isn’t supposed to happen, and it’s unacceptable when it does,” a White House spokesperson said in late October, when the FBI began investigating the leak. The US has apologized to Israel for the leak, Haaretz reported.