“Top secret” US documents on Israeli response to Iranian attack leaked on Telegram

Official documents from the US administration appearing to detail preparations for an Israeli attack on Iran were published on Friday on a pro-Iranian Telegram account.

On Friday, American President Joe Biden told journalists in Berlin that he knew how and when the Jewish state would respond to the ballistic missile attack launched by Iran against Israeli territory on October 1.

The origin of the leak of the two documents published on the Telegram channel “Middle East Spectator”, where they were still available on Saturday as L’Orient-Le Jour noted, was attributed by Haaretz to the NIMSAT Institute of US Department of Defense, specializing in advanced technologies. According to CNN, the documents come from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency for one and the NSA for the other.

They would have been, according to the Telegram account, “leaked” by a “source within an American intelligence agency” and would show the conclusions of surveillance operations of Israeli preparations for the response to the Iranian attack. The “Middle East Spectator” channel claims to be “pro-Iran, pro-Palestine, anti-woke and anti-imperialist” and is based in Iran, according to the X account associated with it.

Documents « top secret »

According to the American channel CNN, the documents are “top secret” in nature and markers indicate that they are only intended for the United States and its so-called “Five eyes” allies, namely Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. One of the American channel’s sources confirmed the authenticity of these documents. Contacted by the media Axios, which first revealed the existence of the leak, the Pentagon and the office of the director of national intelligence refused to comment, without however contesting the authenticity of the documents. Washington nevertheless apologized to Tel Aviv for this leak, according to Haaretz, citing an Israeli source. Because the revelation of these reports could disrupt the Israeli response against Iran, while the leaked leaflets report certain measures taken by the Israelis to prepare for their attack, including the movement of munitions.

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According to the message accompanying the documents on the Telegram channel, the “top secret” sheets refer to information collected on October 15 and 16. They notably show an observation report according to which the Israeli Air Force has manipulated aeroballistic missiles (ballistic missiles launched from an aircraft) at the Hatzerim air base since October 8 to arm military aircraft. These would include “Golden Horizon” missiles, mentioned for the first time publicly, according to Haaretz, and “ROCKS”. The latter are missiles produced by the Israeli military technology company Rafael – recently targeted by Hezbollah fire -, which can be launched by F-16 or F-35 fighter planes from very far away, behind the systems anti-aircraft defense of the enemy, specifies the daily.

During the same two days, according to these documents, the Israeli Air Force also moved air-to-ground missiles to the bases of Ramot David, east of Haifa, and Ramon, located in the desert of Negev. Large-scale aerial exercises would also have been carried out with a view to a potential attack with “a large number of planes”, particularly fighter planes. The exercises notably involved in-flight refueling maneuvers. One of the documents adds that the Israeli army carried out operations with drones on October 16 that “allow secret surveillance of Iran and the region.”

According to three sources familiar with the matter cited by CNN, Washington launched an investigation into this leak, primarily aimed at determining who had access to the documents supposed to come from the Pentagon, with one highly placed source calling it a “very worrying” leak. Any leak of this type automatically triggers an investigation by the FBI, the Pentagon and American intelligence agencies, recalls the media. Likely to reveal a significant security vulnerability within the community of American intelligence agencies, the incident is taken very seriously by Washington.

Already undermined under the last very right-wing government of Benjamin Netanyahu, with his judicial reform project, then his conduct of the war in Gaza and Lebanon, the bilateral relationship could also take a hit. “The report, if accurate, suggests very close and detailed monitoring of Israel’s preparations for an attack on Iran by US intelligence, including through the use of satellites to spy on operations carried out in Israeli Air Force bases,” underlines Axios. Measures which, when used between allies, can cause turmoil. Haaretz reports that the leaked information revealed that warplanes had been moved into fortified underground bunkers at Hatzerim air base, potentially making them vulnerable to attack.

It is currently unclear whether the documents were hacked or whether they were leaked from the inside as claimed by the Telegram channel “Middle East Spectator”. The Iranians have increased their cyberattacks in the United States in the run-up to the presidential election which will pit Democratic Vice-President Kamala Harris against former Republican President Donald Trump, whom Tehran does not want to see again in the White House. While the objective behind the revelation of the documents may have been to disrupt Israeli plans to attack Iran, or even to create discord between the Jewish state and the United States, a US official told Axios that it did not think it would “influence Israel’s operational plans against Iran.” Haaretz also recalls that this is not the first time that classified documents on Israel have leaked from American intelligence agencies. “(The leak of) these documents is certainly a bad thing, but not a terrible thing either. The problem is if there are more,” a US official warned CNN.