President Joe Biden is “deeply concerned” that classified intelligence related to Israel’s preparations to respond to Iran’s Oct. 1 ballistic missile assault was leaked to a pro-Iran Telegram channel, U.S. National Security Council spokesman John Kirby said on Monday.
“That is not supposed to happen, and it’s unacceptable when it does,” Kirby said of the intelligence breach, adding that the president “will be actively monitoring the progress of the investigative effort to figure out how this happened, and obviously he’ll be very interested in hearing any mitigation measures and recommendations that come as a result of the investigative efforts and how to prevent it from happening again.”
Kirby said that it is not yet known how the documents were leaked and that the Department of Defense continues to investigate the incident.
“We don’t have any indication at this point that there’s an expectation that there’ll be additional documents like this finding their way into the public domain,” Kirby added in response to a question from reporters.
The leaked documents, dated Oct. 15 and Oct. 16, are marked top secret and for viewing by the “Five Eyes” intelligence partners only, namely the U.S., Australia, Canada, New Zealand and United Kingdom.
Axios reported that the documents include a Visual Intelligence report by the Department of Defense National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency that had been passed around U.S. intelligence agencies earlier last week.
The alleged intelligence documents detailed the transfer of munitions to Israeli Air Force bases and other preparations for a likely attack on Iran, including a training exercise last week and movements by Israeli drones.
The files were posted by pro-Iran Telegram channel “Middle East Spectator.” The channel claimed it had no connection with the original leaker. “Furthermore, we assumed the documents were floating around elsewhere on Telegram, making them part of the public domain,” it said.
Axios noted on Saturday that the intelligence leak may be an attempt to “disrupt” Jerusalem’s plans to retaliate against Tehran and revealed close spying by U.S. intelligence on Israel, including with satellites.
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) told CNN on Sunday that the leaking of sensitive intelligence documents was “very concerning.
“I talked to my friend Bibi, Prime Minister Netanyahu, yesterday, to encourage him,” Johnson told the U.S. channel, adding: “He’s done an extraordinary job, I think, prosecuting that war, and if he had taken Joe Biden’s advice, they’d be in a much weaker position right now.”