A CIA official has been charged with leaking top-secret classified documents that revealed information last month about Israel’s plans for a military strike against Iran, according to U.S. court documents and people familiar with the matter, as reported by the Wall Street Journal.
Asif William Rahman was arrested in Cambodia on Tuesday and transported to a federal court in Guam to be charged. He was indicted last week in federal court in Virginia on two counts of wilful transmission of national defence information, charges that can result in years in prison.
Court documents filed Wednesday say Rahman possessed a top-secret security clearance and had access to sensitive compartmented information. The documents don’t state that he worked at the CIA, but people familiar with the matter confirmed his employment at the spy agency.
Rahman worked overseas for the CIA in Cambodia and elsewhere, although it’s not publicly known what sort of work he did. Rahman has previously lived in eastern Virginia.
In October two leaked classified reports from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which analyses imagery gathered by American reconnaissance satellites, appeared on Telegram and X. The files were circulated by a pro-Iran account, Middle East Spectator, which says it received them from an anonymous source.
U.S. spy agencies have suffered a number of significant unauthorised disclosures in recent years. Officials were worried about the possibility of more disclosures, though it appears the leak was limited to the original documents.
The leaked reports assessed Israel’s planning for a possible Iran attack, including the types of aircraft and munitions its military could use. They also described Israeli air-force exercises involving air-to-surface missiles, believed to be in preparation for aerial strikes inside Iran.
The motives for Rahman’s alleged leaks weren’t immediately clear.