Posted on 10/20/24
| News Source: Arutz-7
US House Speaker Mike Johnson expressed deep concern over the leak of classified documents related to Israel's plans to retaliate for Iran's massive ballistic missile attack three weeks ago.
“The leak is very concerning. There’s some serious allegations being made there, an investigation underway, and I’ll get a briefing on that in a couple of hours,” Johnson told CNN’s 'State of the Union program on Sunday. “We’re following it closely.”
“I talked to my friend … Prime Minister Netanyahu, yesterday to encourage him,” he added. ” I think that the United States needs to stand unequivocally by our ally there… we’re on a precipice… of a new era of security and freedom for Israel. And I think we’re very close.”
The US is investigating the leak of Israel's highly-classified plans for retaliation against Iran, CNN reported on Saturday, quoting three people familiar with the matter.
One of the sources confirmed that the leaked documents were authentic.
The documents, dated October 15-16, began circulating Friday after an Iran-affiliated account named, "The Middle East Spectator," posted them on Telegram.
Axios added that the Middle East Spectator said that it had "received" the documents "from a source in the US intelligence community."
A US official told CNN that the leak is "deeply concerning."
The documents describe Israel's preparations for a strike against Iran, and were marked top secret and were intended to be seen only by the US and its "Five Eyes" allies: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the UK, CNN added.
One of the documents, which appears to have been compiled by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, says the plans "involve Israel moving munitions around." Another document sourced to the National Security Agency outlines IAF exercises involving air-to-surface missiles.
According to Axios, the report also states that US signals intelligence showed that the IAF conducted a large exercise involving intelligence planes "and likely fighter jets trained" for a potential attack on Iran. Israeli drone units were also preparing for such an attack, the intelligence report indicated.