US struggles to discover source of top secret intel leak

American officials are scrambling to pinpoint the source of the latest online leak of highly classified military and intelligence documents, including intel about Ukraine's air defenses and the Israeli regime's infamous Mossad spy agency.

US officials further state that the span of topics discussed in the leaked files -- which address the Ukraine conflict, China, the Middle East and Africa -- suggest that the breach may have been perpetrated by an American rather than a foreign ally, Western media outlets reported on Sunday and Monday.

"The focus now is on this being a US leak, as many of the documents were only in US hands," a former senior Pentagon official, Michael Mulroy, emphasized in an interview with Reuters.

The Pentagon has referred the case to the Department of Justice, which has opened a criminal investigation.

Two US officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that while there was concern about the leak at the Pentagon and intelligence agencies, the documents showed a snapshot in time from more than a month ago, rather than more recent assessments.

The two officials said the military and intelligence agencies were looking at their processes for how widely some of the intelligence is shared internally.

Officials are also looking into the possible motivations a US official or a group of officials would have in leaking such sensitive information, said one of the officials cited in a Reuters report.

US assessing impact of highly-classified documents leak on national security, allies: Pentagon

The US says it is assessing the fallout from the recent leakage of highly-classified documents on the country

The official said investigators were looking at four or five theories, from a disgruntled employee to an insider threat who actively wanted to undermine US national security interests.

US officials also underlined that the investigation is in its early stages but have already alleged -- without evidence -- that pro-Russian elements may be behind the leak, which is seen as one of the most serious security breaches since more than 700,000 documents, videos and diplomatic cables appeared on the WikiLeaks website in 2013.

This is while a number of Western news outlets also allege that some of the documents addressing battlefield casualty estimates in the Ukraine conflict appeared to have been altered to minimize Russian losses.

One of the documents, dated February 23 and marked "Secret," outlines in detail how Ukraine's S-300 air defense systems would be depleted by May 2 at the current usage rate.

Such closely guarded information could be of use to Russian forces, and Kiev declared its president and top security officials met on Friday to discuss ways to prevent leaks.

According to a Reuters report, two American officials insisted on Sunday that they have not ruled out that the documents may have been doctored to mislead investigators as to their origin or to disseminate false information that may harm US security interests.

Pentagon also released a statement on Sunday, saying it was reviewing the validity of the photographed documents that "appear to contain sensitive and highly classified material."

Another document, marked "Top Secret" and from a CIA Intel update from March 1, says the Mossad spy agency was encouraging protests against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's plans to tighten controls on the Supreme Court.

The document said the US learned this through signals intelligence, suggesting Washington had been spying on one of its closest allies in the Middle East.

Another document gave details of internal discussions among senior South Korean officials about US pressure on Seoul to help supply weapons to Ukraine, and its policy of not doing so.

The office of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said on Monday that fact checks on the documents are a priority and that it would request the US to take "appropriate" steps after confirming details.

Some lawmakers of South Korea's main opposition Democratic Party expressed "strong regret" over the spying allegations, calling them a clear violation of national sovereignty and a major security failure of the Yoon administration.

"We strongly demand a thorough investigation and urge that similar incidents do not occur," the lawmakers said in a joint statement.

The Pentagon has not addressed the contents of any specific documents, including the apparent surveillance of allies.

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