By Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON -- A CIA official has been charged with leaking top-secret classified documents that revealed information last month about Israel's plans for a military strike against Iran, according to U.S. court documents and people familiar with the matter.

Asif William Rahman, a U.S. government official with top security clearance, was arrested in Cambodia on Tuesday and transported to a federal court in Guam to be charged. He was indicted last week in federal court in Virginia on two counts of willful transmission of national defense information, which are charges that can result in years in prison.

Court documents filed Wednesday say Rahman possessed a top-secret security clearance and had access to sensitive compartmented information. The documents don't state that he worked at the CIA, but people familiar with the matter confirmed his employment at the spy agency.

In October two leaked classified reports from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, which analyzes imagery gathered by American reconnaissance satellites, appeared on Telegram and X. The files were circulated by a pro-Iran account, Middle East Spectator, which says it received them from an anonymous source.

The leak set off a scramble within the U.S. spy agencies -- which have suffered a number of significant unauthorized disclosures in recent years -- to identify the source of the breach. Officials were worried about the possibility of more disclosures, though it appears the leak was limited to the original documents.

The leaked reports assessed Israel's planning for a possible Iran attack, including the types of aircraft and munitions its military could use. They also described Israeli air-force exercises involving air-to-surface missiles, believed to be in preparation for aerial strikes inside Iran. One of the reports says the U.S. hasn't seen any sign an attack would involve nuclear weapons, a capability Israel is known to possess but doesn't publicly confirm it has.

Write to Dustin Volz at dustin.volz@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 13, 2024 10:03 ET (15:03 GMT)

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