Former CIA employee admits to leaking Israeli plans to attack Iran
Former CIA employee admits to leaking Israeli plans to attack Iran
2025-01-18 00:38
Shafaq News/ Former CIA employee Asif William Rahman has pleaded guilty to charges of intentionally concealing and transmitting national defense information for leaking secret Israeli plans to attack Iran, according to the US Department of Justice.
The Israeli website “I24″ reported that Rahman, who has worked for the CIA since 2016, admitted that he had illegally downloaded, printed and distributed classified information on multiple occasions during 2024.
According to U.S. court records, in the spring of 2024, Rahman printed five documents classified as confidential and top secret from his work computer, took them to his home, and then reproduced, modified, and shared them with people not legally authorized to view them. To conceal these actions, Rahman deleted his activity from electronic devices at work and returned the records after shredding them.
In the fall of 2024, Rahman printed 10 more documents classified as top secret, took them to his home and shared them with others, according to court filings. On Oct. 17, 2024, he printed two more documents related to a U.S. ally’s plans to strike a foreign adversary.
These documents, which included Israeli plans to strike Iran, later appeared on the Internet, after being published by a pro-Iran Telegram account called the Middle East Spectator.
The FBI arrested Rahman in mid-November on charges of leaking classified information related to assessing Israel’s plans to attack Iran, before the retaliatory strike carried out at the end of the same month.
It is noteworthy that press reports had stated that “new satellite images revealed that the attack launched by Israel on Iran, last October, hit a group of sensitive military sites, including a major missile production plant.”
American media outlets reported that “satellite images taken in March 2024 show a difference in the Shahroud Space Center in Semnan Province,” while analysts say that “this center was likely used to produce medium-range ballistic missiles.”
According to the media, “It appears that the Israeli attack on Iran hit the base run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, which manufactures ballistic missiles and missile launchers as part of Iran’s space program,” noting that the damage to the space base raises new questions about the Israeli attack, especially in light of the fact that Iran has so far confirmed that Israel attacked the provinces of Ilam, Khuzestan and Tehran, and not the rural province of Semnan, where the base is located.
“We don’t know whether Iranian production has been affected as some say, or whether it has just been damaged, but we have seen enough imagery to show that there is some impact,” said Fabian Hinz, a missile expert and research fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, which studies Iran.
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