by Admin
Jan 19, 2025
After months of intense investigation about the leaked Israel plan attack on Iran, a former CIA employee has admitted to leaking classified information regarding Israel’s plans to launch an attack on Iran.
Asif Rahman, 34, pleaded guilty to charges of willfully retaining and transmitting national defense information. Rahman was arrested by the FBI in November, shortly after the classified documents surfaced on the Telegram messaging app.
The documents shared on the Telegram app by an account named Middle East Spectator outlined Israel’s preparations for a potential strike on Iran, although they did not specify any concrete targets.
The documents, produced by the United States National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, detailed aviation exercises and the movement of munitions at an Israeli airfield. The leak prompted Israeli officials to postpone their planned retaliatory strike.
Employed by the Central Intelligence Agency since 2016 and holding a top-secret security clearance, he was arrested by the FBI in Cambodia in November.
A court filing reveals that on October 17, Rahman printed two top-secret documents detailing “a United States foreign ally and its planned kinetic actions against a foreign adversary.”
The government prosecutor revealed that Rahman photographed the documents and used a computer program to alter the images in “an attempt to conceal their source and erase his activity,”. The Prosecutor further revealed that Rahman then shared the documents with “multiple individuals he knew were unauthorized to receive them” before shredding the originals at his workplace.
In a statement made by the FBI, it revealed that “Rahman also destroyed multiple electronic devices, including a personal mobile device and an internet router he used to transmit classified information,”.
Rahman faces a potential 20-year prison sentence after pleading guilty in a Virginia federal court to two counts of willfully retaining and transmitting national defense information.
General Matthew Olsen, the United States Assistant Attorney General said “Mr Rahman betrayed the trust of the American people by unlawfully sharing classified national defense information he swore an oath to protect,”
On October 1, Iran launched approximately 200 ballistic missiles toward Israel as a response to the deaths of senior members of the Iran-supported militant groups Hamas and Hezbollah.
However, Israel retaliated with a wave of strikes on military targets in Iran in late October.