CIA official arrested for top-secret leak on Israel plans to attack Iran: What we know
Asif W. Rahman was charged in a federal court in Virginia last week with two counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information.
A US government employee has been charged and arrested in relation to a leak of Israeli military plans against Iran, according to reports on Wednesday.
The New York Times first reported that a CIA official named Asif W. Rahman was charged in a federal court in Virginia last week with two counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information in regard to the leak of what appeared to be Israeli plans to attack Iran. Rahman, who worked for the intelligence agency overseas, was arrested by the FBI in Cambodia on Tuesday and will be brought to federal court in the US territory of Guam on Thursday, according to the outlet.
Citing a court filing, the Associated Press also identified the arrestee as Asif Willliam Rahman and reported he was charged with leaking classified information with regard to earlier Israeli plans to attack Iran. It was not immediately clear if Rahman had a lawyer, but officials said he had a top secret security clearance, the outlet reported.
Documents detailing Israeli plans appeared on a pro-Iranian Telegram account on Oct. 18. They showed Israeli preparations for a strike on Iran including information on aircraft and munitions, but did not include a date for the action. US officials subsequently confirmed the authenticity of the documents to CNN.
The release followed the Oct. 1 Iranian missile strike in Israel. Iran struck Israel with around 200 ballistic missiles, causing limited damage to Israeli military installations. Iran said the attack was in response to Israel killing Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and an Iranian commander in a strike in Beirut in late September, as well as the assassination of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July.
Israel vowed to respond to the attack and struck Iranian military targets on Oct. 26, more than a week after news of the leak surfaced.
Israel was stunned by the release of the plans. However, Israeli defense and intelligence officials believed the leak was the work of a relatively low-level official critical of US policy on Israel and not a higher-level effort to hinder the Israeli operation, Ben Caspit wrote for Al-Monitor at the time.
