Amid efforts by the Biden administration to limit the scope of a retaliatory Israeli strike against Iran, the country’s detailed war plan has allegedly been leaked to Iranian-linked social media accounts, Israeli journalist Barak Ravid reported Saturday in the Axios news website.
The leak contains detailed information on Israel’s military preparations for a strike on potential Iranian targets supposed to have been collected by U.S. intelligence services, Ravid wrote.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has vowed to hit back at Iran after the Shia-Islamic regime in early October launched over 180 missiles into Israel. “The alleged leak comes as Israel completes weeks of preparations for a retaliation against Iran, which attacked Israel with a barrage of ballistic missiles on Oct. 1,” the news outlet notes.
The attack plan may have been leaked to Tehran-linked accounts in a bid to sabotage Israel’s retaliation to the Iranian missile strike. “The leak could be an attempt to disrupt the Israeli operation,” Axios article says. “The Pentagon and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment on the leaked documents, but did not dispute their authenticity.’
The Axios reported the details of the intelligence breach:
A Telegram channel by the name “Middle East Spectator” claimed on Friday that it had received documents from a source in the U.S. intelligence community about Israel’s preparations for an attack on Iran.The Telegram channel routinely publishes pro-Iranian content, and the profile of the X account affiliated with the channel says it is located in Iran.The documents include an alleged Visual Intelligence report by the Department of Defense National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) distributed inside the U.S. intelligence community earlier this week.The authenticity of the documents has not been independently verified by Axios.The alleged report details measures that have been carried out in recent days at several Israeli Air Force bases, including the transfer of advanced munitions which, according to the report, were intended for an attack on Iran.It also states that according to U.S. signals intelligence, the Israeli Air Force conducted a large exercise this week involving intelligence planes and likely fighter jets trained for a possible attack against Iran.The alleged intelligence report also detailed preparations in Israeli drone units for an attack against Iran.
The report of the alleged U.S. intelligence leak comes as President Joe Biden on Friday declared that he was looking for a “way that potentially ends their conflict in the Middle East for a while,” suggesting that Israel could back away from its retaliation plan.
“Joe Biden, the US president, said on Friday there was an opportunity to deal with Israel and Iran in a way that potentially ends their conflict in the Middle East for a while,” the British newspaper Guardian reported. “Biden told reporters in Germany that the ‘back and forth’ between Iran and Israel could be stopped, and a ceasefire was possible in Lebanon too,” the UK daily added.
The quality of the leaked intelligence suggests that under President Biden’s watch, the U.S. intelligence services are conducting “very close and detailed surveillance … of Israel’s preparations for an attack on Iran, including the use of satellites to spy on operations carried out at Israeli Air Force bases,” the Axios article notes.
“The potential leak could be the sign of very serious security breach within the U.S. intelligence community that resulted in top secret classified information reaching a Telegram channel affiliated with Iran,” the article concludes.
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