WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is “deeply concerned” about the unauthorized release of classified documents on Israel's preparation for a potential retaliatory attack on Iran, a White House spokesman said Monday.
The Biden administration is still not certain if the classified information was leaked or hacked, White House national security spokesman John Kirby said. Officials don’t have any indication at this point of "additional documents like this finding their way into the public domain,” he said.
Kirby added that the Pentagon is investigating. U.S. officials on Saturday had confirmed an investigation by the administration.
“We’re deeply concerned, and the president remains deeply concerned about any leakage of classified information into the public domain. That is not supposed to happen, and it’s unacceptable when it does,” Kirby said.
The documents are attributed to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, and note that Israel was still moving military assets in place to conduct a military strike in response to Iran’s blistering ballistic missile attack on Oct. 1. They were sharable within the “Five Eyes,” an intelligence alliance comprised of the U.S., Great Britain, Canada, New Zealand and Australia.
Marked top secret, the documents first appeared online Friday on the Telegram messaging app and quickly spread among Telegram channels popular with Iranians.
Analysts at the SITE Intelligence Group, a consultancy that monitors and analyzes online threats from extremist groups, tracked the release of the documents to a Telegram channel popular with Iran-backed militias. The channel contained posts from an anonymous user with a long history of posting other supposedly top-secret content who said they had access to the leaked documents. The user also wrote that they had sold some of the material and provided it to the Iranian military.
The release comes at a pivotal time in the Middle East, as Israel considers its response to Iran’s attack.
“The smallest item — even something like the leak of this relatively innocuous document — could move things in new directions,” said Rita Katz, SITE's co-founder and executive director.
Rep. Mike Turner of Ohio, the Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said the unauthorized release of the information was concerning, especially given the “high stakes of what’s going on in the Middle East right now.”
While it remains possible the information was obtained through hacking, “if this has been a leak, it is criminal and it is certainly espionage,“ Turner said Monday on the BBC.
The Telegram channel identifies itself as being based in Tehran, Iran’s capital. It previously published memes featuring Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and material in support of Tehran’s self-described “Axis of Resistance,” which includes Middle East militant groups armed by the Islamic Republic.
One of the two documents resembled the style of other material from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency leaked by Jack Teixeira, an Air National Guardsman who pleaded guilty in March to leaking highly classified military documents about Russia’s war on Ukraine and other national security secrets.
The U.S. has urged Israel to take advantage of its elimination of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and press for a cease-fire in Gaza and has likewise urgently cautioned Israel not to further expand military operations in the north in Lebanon and risk a wider regional war.
However, Israel’s leadership has repeatedly stressed it will not let Iran’s missile attack go unanswered.
The investigation into the release of the documents may take some time as authorities look for digital or physical clues that could reveal how the information got out, and what implications it may have for information management and intelligence sharing with U.S. allies, according to Gavin Wilde, a senior fellow in the Technology and International Affairs Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
“I imagine they'll eventually get to the bottom of it,” said Wilde, who formerly worked on the National Security Council. “The intelligence community has gotten a lot better at digital chain of custody — who has seen a particular document, how many times it's been shared, and with whom.”
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on Monday declined to comment on what changes the government has made to better safeguard top secret information in the aftermath of the Discord leak. She added that Biden has “complete confidence” in the Pentagon, Justice Department and intelligence community following the latest unauthorized disclosure.
The nation's spy agencies have worked to bolster cybersecurity since the Discord leak and the conviction of former NSA contractor Reality Winner. Accounting for human behavior, however, can be a harder challenge, according to Shawnee Delaney, a former officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency who is now CEO of the Vaillance Group, a private threat analysis firm.
“Cybersecurity isn’t just a technological issue," Delaney told The Associated Press. “It’s a human one, and humans are wholly unpredictable.”
Spokespeople for the Pentagon and the NSA said officials were aware of the incident but had no further comment.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre speaks Monday, Oct. 21, 2024, during a briefing at the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
White House: Biden 'deeply concerned' about release of documents on Israel's possible attack plans
White House: Biden 'deeply concerned' about release of documents on Israel's possible attack plans
FILE - President Joe Biden, right, talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, left, in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, July 25, 2024. U.S. officials say the Biden administration believes it has won assurances from Israel that it will not strike Iranian nuclear or oil sites as it looks to strike back following Iran’s missile barrage earlier this month. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss private diplomatic discussions, cautioned that the pledge is not iron-clad and that circumstances could change. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — The metal gangway where dozens of people waited to board a ferry boat made a loud, creaking noise before snapping in the middle amid panicked cries from those sent plunging into the water. Some clung desperately to the railing, while others began to float away with the tidal current.
“There was no time for anyone to get off,” said Icy White, who watched from about 30 feet away at the ferry dock on Sapelo Island. “It took seconds.”
White’s family was among hundreds visiting the isolated Georgia barrier island Saturday for a fall festival spotlighting the history and culture of its tiny Gullah-Geechee community of Black slave descendants. The celebration gave way to tragedy when the gangway collapsed, sending seven visitors to their deaths.
White of Atlanta recorded video of the immediate aftermath on her cellphone and shared it with The Associated Press. It shows tourists and island residents jumping into action to rescue imperiled strangers and render aid to the injured in a remote location with few trained first responders initially on-site.
“There was no EMS that was there,” said Darrel Jenkins, White’s cousin. “We were the EMS.”
Largely unspoiled Sapelo Island, most of which is owned the state of Georgia, has no roads or bridges connecting it to the mainland. Residents and visitors typically rely on ferries operated by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources to make the 7-mile (11-kilometer) trip.
Natural Resources Commissioner Walter Rabon told a news conference Sunday an estimated 700 visitors showed up for the Cultural Day event hosted by residents of Hogg Hummock, a tiny enclave founded after the Civil War by slaves who had worked the island plantation of Thomas Spalding.
Rabon said his agency had 40 staff members working on the island during one of its busiest days of the year. The U.S. Coast Guard and local sheriff's and fire departments later joined search and rescue efforts with boats and helicopters. But Rabon praised civilian bystanders for their efforts immediately after the collapse sent about 20 people into the water.
“Their quick response and action saved additional lives,” Rabon said.
White's video shows people clinging to metal railing on the broken gangway, dangling at a steep angle into the water. Some holding on at the bottom are partly submerged, while those closer to the top extend hands trying to reach and pull them up. Others pass orange life preservers to those at the bottom.
At least a dozen people floating in the water can be seen drifting away from the dock, pulled by a strong tidal current that threatened to drag them out to sea. Still recording on her phone, White runs into a dockside parking lot shouting for others to come help.
“Who can help? Who can swim? Please, help! Help! Help!" she calls out. "The bridge fell! It fell! Please help! People are in the water!”
Another video clip shows volunteers attempting to comfort a crying woman with a broken leg at the water's edge. A few feet away, a man in latex gloves kneels performing chest compressions on someone sprawled on the ground, a muddy mix of rocks and shells.
Other footage shows volunteers using a blanket to form a makeshift stretcher for an injured woman, then carrying her toward a boat for evacuation.
The seven people killed were all seniors, ranging in age from 73 to 93, according to McIntosh County Coroner Melvin Amerson.
Officials said none of them lived on the island, and Hogg Hummock resident Reginald Hall said none of them appeared to be islanders' family members.
They included Charles L. Houston, 77, of nearby Darien, a chaplain for the Georgia Department of Natural Resources.
Also killed were William Johnson Jr., 73, and Queen Welch, 76, both of Atlanta. The remaining four were from Jacksonville, Florida: Crews Carter, 75; Cynthia Gibbs, 74; Carlotta McIntosh, 93; Isaiah Thomas, 79.
The broken gangway was removed from the dock and taken to what the Georgia Department of Natural Resources on Monday called a “secured facility.”
An investigative team with expertise in accident reconstruction and engineering was assigned to determine what caused the collapse that Rabon, the Natural Resources commissioner, referred to Sunday as a “catastrophic failure.”
Rabon's agency operates the Sapelo Island ferries and dock, which was rebuilt in 2021. The agency said the gangway was last inspected in December 2023 with no concerns identified.
Rabon told reporters about 40 people were standing on the gangway waiting to board a ferry when it collapsed in the middle.
Hogg Hummock is among a shrinking cluster of small Southern communities descended from enslaved island populations known as Gullah, or Geechee in Georgia. Scholars say residents retain much of their African heritage — including a unique dialect and skills such as cast-net fishing and basket weaving — because of their separation from the mainland.
Hogg Hummock, also known as Hog Hammock, was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1996.
But the community’s population has been shrinking for decades, and some families have sold their land to outsiders for vacation homes. Last year, county commissioners approved zoning changes that doubled the size of homes allowed in Hogg Hummock. That raised fears among residents that larger homes could spur tax increases that could force them to sell land their families have held for generations.
Wagster Pettus reported from Jackson, Mississippi.
A portion of the gangway which collapsed Saturday afternoon remains visible on Sapelo Island in McIntosh county, Ga., Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Lewis Levine)
Georgia Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Walter Rabon addresses the media at the Sapelo island visitors center, alongside Georgia State Rep. Buddy DeLoach, Rep. Al Williams, Ga House Speaker Jon Burns and McIntosh Sheriffs Stephen Jesup Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Lewis Levine)
Georgia Department of Natural Resources, Captain Chris Hodge speaks during a news conference after a gangway collapse on Sapelo Island, Ga in McIntosh county, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Lewis M. Levine)
A hearse heads to Meridian Dock in McIntosh county where several people after a gangway collapsed plunging them into the water, on Sapelo Island, Ga in McIntosh county, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Lewis M. Levine)
A portion of the gangway which collapsed Saturday afternoon remains visible on Sapelo Island in McIntosh county, Ga., Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Lewis Levine)
FILE - The sun rises over Sapelo Island, Ga., a Gullah-Geechee community, on June 10, 2013. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)
Festival goers who attended a Gullah Geechee festival on Sapelo Island leave the Elm Grove Church where they were taken to reunite with loved ones on Sapelo Island, Ga in McIntosh county, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Lewis M. Levine)
A portion of the gangway which collapsed Saturday afternoon remains visible on Sapelo Island in McIntosh county, Ga., Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024. (AP Photo/Lewis Levine)
