US Government Worker Charged With Leaking Classified Documents on Israel’s Plans to Strike Iran

Washington: A man who worked for U.S. government has been charged with leaking classified information assessing Israel’s earlier plans to attack Iran, according to court papers filed Wednesday.

man, identified as Asif William Rahman, was arrested by FBI this week in Cambodia and was due to make his first court appearance in Guam.

He was indicted last week in U.S. court in Virginia on two counts of willful transmission of national defense information — felony charges that can carry significant prison sentences.

It was not immediately clear wher Rahman h a lawyer or which federal agency employed him, but officials say he h a top-secret security clearance with access to sensitive compartmented information.

charges stem from documents, attributed to National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, appearing last month on a channel of Telegram messaging app. documents noted that Israel was still moving military assets in place to conduct a military strike in response to Iran’s blistering ballistic missile attack on Oct. 1.

documents were sharable within “Five Eyes,” which are United States, Britain, Cana, New Zealand and Australia.

emergence of documents triggered an FBI investigation that examined how documents were obtained — including wher it was an intentional leak by a member of U.S. intelligence community or obtained by anor method, like a hack — and wher any or intelligence information was compromised. Officials also worked to determine who h access to documents before y were posted.