WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks may have blood on its hands, the Pentagon said on Thursday, warning its unprecedented leak of secret U.S. military files could cost lives and damage trust of allies.

An Army intelligence officer, already under arrest, is at the center of an investigation into the leak of more than 90,000 secret records to WikiLeaks, one of the biggest security breaches in U.S. military history, U.S. officials have said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates declined to comment on the probe but said he could not rule out more leaks of classified information. He also announced plans to tighten access to sensitive intelligence data.

“I don’t know whether there is anyone else out there that is a party to this,” Gates said at the Pentagon in his first public comments since Sunday’s publication of the documents.

Admiral Mike Mullen, who as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the top U.S. military officer, lashed out at WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange, who says he aims to expose corporate and government corruption.

“Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing,” Mullen said. “But the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family.”

Gates said he did not know whether Assange should face criminal prosecution or whether WikiLeaks should be treated like a media organization protected by free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution. “I think that’s a question for people who are more expert in the law than I am,” he said.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The unprecedented leak of secret U.S. military reports on the Afghan war may cost lives and damage trust with allies, the Pentagon said on Thursday, warning publisher WikiLeaks could have blood on its hands.

An Army intelligence officer, already under arrest, is at the center of an investigation into the leak of more than 90,000 secret military records to whistle-blower website WikiLeaks, U.S. officials have said.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates declined to comment on the probe but said he could not rule out more leaks of classified information. He also announced plans to tighten access to sensitive intelligence data.

“I don’t know whether there is anyone else out there that is a party to this,” Gates said at the Pentagon in his first public comments since Sunday’s publication of the documents.

Admiral Mike Mullen, who as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the top U.S. military officer, lashed out at WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange, who says he publishes documents to expose corporate and government corruption.

“Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing,” Mullen said.

“But the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon said on Monday it was launching a manhunt to find whoever leaked tens of thousands of classified documents on the war in Afghanistan, one of the largest security breaches in U.S. military history.

U.S. defense officials said the person behind the release of some 91,000 classified documents appeared to have “secret” clearance and access to sensitive documents on the Afghan war.

More leaks were possible, officials acknowledged.

“We will do what is necessary to try to determine who is responsible for the leaking of this information,” Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said.

“Until we know who’s responsible, you have to hold out the possibility that there could be more information that has yet to be disclosed. And that’s obviously a concern.”

The Pentagon said its review of the documents being made public by the organization WikiLeaks would take “days if not weeks” and that it was too soon to assess any damage to national security.

Still, U.S. military officials played down any revelations within the documents revealed so far, saying they appeared to be low-level assessments that largely confirm the military’s publicly stated concerns about the Afghan war.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. military and intelligence agencies believe some elements within Pakistan’s intelligence service maintain contact with and may even in some cases support the Taliban and its allies, but assistance for insurgents has been slowly curtailed.

U.S. concerns about Pakistan’s alleged double-dealing are nothing new, and officials who have been working with Islamabad for years to try to sideline Taliban backers within the security services said on Monday they were not shocked by the contents of leaked secret U.S. military reports.

Among the reports, which cover a more than five-year period from 2004 to the end of 2009, were unverified allegations that Pakistan allowed representatives of its Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency to meet directly with the Taliban to organize militant groups that fight against U.S. soldiers.

The military reports, which the organization WikiLeaks provided to The New York Times, Britain’s The Guardian newspaper and German weekly Der Spiegel and were published last weekend, also detail efforts by ISI officers to run networks of suicide bombers in Afghanistan. They allege that the ISI may have been part of a Taliban plot to assassinate Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

The revelations have raised new questions about President Barack Obama’s strategy, which hinges in large part on Pakistan’s cooperation to turn around the troubled nine-year-old war in Afghanistan.

A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Pakistan was moving in a positive direction but still sometimes used militant groups to try to increase its influence in Afghanistan and undercut arch-rival India’s interests.

“The Pakistanis have made possible many of our greatest victories against al-Qaeda and its violent allies, either through active cooperation or by permitting us to take action,” the official said, referring to operations that have resulted in capturing or killing of senior al Qaeda figures.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. officials in Afghanistan strongly suspected Pakistan was secretly supporting the Taliban while taking massive amounts of American aid, military reports leaked on Sunday show, raising new questions about President Barack Obama’s war strategy.

The White House responded immediately with a strong condemnation of the disclosures by the organization WikiLeaks, saying it could threaten national security and endanger the lives of Americans and those of its allies.

But Obama’s national security adviser, Jim Jones, said the leak would not affect “our ongoing commitment to deepen our partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

The revelations contained in more than 90,000 classified documents could fuel growing doubts in Congress about Obama’s war strategy when the U.S. death toll is soaring and public support for the 9-year-old war is eroding.

Despite efforts by the White House to contain the political fallout, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, one of Obama’s closest Democratic allies, said the leaked documents raised “serious questions about the reality of America’s policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan.”

“Those policies are at a critical stage and these documents may very well underscore the stakes and make the calibrations needed to get the policy right more urgent,” Kerry said.

The documents about Pakistan’s alleged double-dealing could provide fodder for lawmakers who want to hold Obama to a timeline for withdrawing troops starting next July as well as increase pressure on the administration to outline a clear exit strategy.

WASHINGTON, July 25 (Reuters) – U.S. officials in Afghanistan strongly suspected Pakistan was secretly supporting the Taliban while taking massive amounts of American aid, military reports leaked on Sunday show, raising new questions about President Barack Obama’s war strategy. The White House responded immediately with a strong condemnation of the disclosures by the organization WikiLeaks, saying it could threaten national security and endanger the lives of Americans and those of its allies. But Obama’s national security adviser, Jim Jones, said the leak would not affect "our ongoing commitment to deepen our partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan." The revelations contained in more than 90,000 classified documents could fuel growing doubts in Congress about Obama’s war strategy when the U.S. death toll is soaring and public support for the 9-year-old war is eroding. Despite efforts by the White House to contain the political fallout, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, one of Obama’s closest Democratic allies, said the leaked documents raised "serious questions about the reality of America’s policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan." "Those policies are at a critical stage and these documents may very well underscore the stakes and make the calibrations needed to get the policy right more urgent," Kerry said. The documents about Pakistan’s alleged double-dealing could provide fodder for lawmakers who want to hold Obama to a timeline for withdrawing troops starting next July as well as increase pressure on the administration to outline a clear exit strategy. Under the heading "Afghan War Diary, the 91,000 documents collected from across the U.S. military in Afghanistan, cover the war from 2004 to 2010, WikiLeaks said in a summary. One of them discusses a meeting of insurgents attended by a former senior Pakistani intelligence official who appears to be working against U.S. forces in Afghanistan. The documents were made available first to The New York Times, Britain’s The Guardian newspaper and German weekly Der Spiegel. The Times reported the documents showed Pakistan actively collaborating with the Afghan insurgency. "The documents … suggest that Pakistan, an ostensible ally of the United States, allows representatives of its spy service to meet directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders," the Times said. The Guardian pointed to an April 2007 allegation that Pakistani intelligence sent 1,000 motorbikes to the Haqqani network, which is aligned with the Taliban, for suicide attacks in Khost and Logar provinces. SERIOUS CHALLENGES AHEAD A summary of the documents is available at www.wikileaks.org, along with a link to the webpage where WikiLeaks said the documents would be posted later on Sunday. U.S. officials said the documents focused on the period leading to the launch of Obama’s Afghan strategy in December 2009, when he authorized the deployment of 30,000 additional troops. "President Obama announced a new strategy with a substantial increase in resources for Afghanistan, and increased focus on al Qaeda and Taliban safe havens in Pakistan, precisely because of the grave situation that had developed over several years," Jones said. "We know that serious challenges lie ahead, but if Afghanistan is permitted to slide backwards, we will again face a threat from violent extremist groups like al Qaeda who will have more space to plot and train," he said. Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, Husain Haqqani, said leaking unprocessed reports from the battlefield was irresponsible. "These reports reflect nothing more than single source comments and rumors, which abound on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and are often proved wrong," he said in a statement. U.S. officials have long complained some in Pakistan were playing both sides. The London School of Economics recently published a report that alleged enduring ties between Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency, known as ISI, and the Afghan Taliban. The report said the agency not only funds and trains Taliban fighters in Afghanistan but is officially represented on the movement’s leadership council, giving it significant influence over operations. Asked about the report last month, General David Petraeus, who recently took over command of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, said Pakistan has maintained "a variety of relationships," in some cases dating back decades, to groups which, with U.S. support, battled the Soviets when they occupied Afghanistan. "Some of those ties continue in various forms, some of them, by the way, gathering intelligence," Petraeus told U.S. lawmakers. "You have to have contact with bad guys to get intelligence on bad guys." WikiLeaks promotes the leaking of information to fight government and corporate corruption. Earlier this year, it leaked a classified video showing a 2007 helicopter attack that killed a dozen people in Iraq, including two Reuters journalists. (Reporting by Adam Entous and Alister Bull; Editing by Patricia Wilson and Doina Chiacu)

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The top commander in Iraq said on Wednesday that U.S. forces in the volatile north would probably be the last to leave the country at the end of 2011, acknowledging Arab-Kurdish disputes were unlikely to be settled before that time despite signs of progress last year.

General Ray Odierno has singled out ethnic tensions between Arabs and Kurds in northern Iraq as the biggest single threat to the country’s stability.

He said the United States remained on track to draw down its forces in Iraq to 50,000 by September 1, when Washington will formally end combat operations, but U.S. forces in the northern city of Kirkuk will remain in place and “probably be one of the last units to leave Iraq … by the end of 2011.”

Odierno’s warnings about the north reflect growing U.S. doubts about prospects for a breakthrough between Arabs and Kurds any time soon. Washington fears an outbreak of violence between them in the area could tip Iraq back into war.

During a visit to Kirkuk in December, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates had voiced confidence Arab and Kurdish leaders were moving toward settling their differences.

But Odierno, speaking to reporters in Washington, said: “We have not solved the problems of the disputed areas. That’s a problem that has to be dealt with in the future.”

“Do I think it’s going to be done by the end of 2011?” he said, referring to the date when U.S. forces are scheduled to leave the country. “No, I don’t.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – North Korea’s alleged sinking of a South Korean warship earlier this year may herald a “dangerous new period” of direct attacks by Pyongyang on the South, the retired general nominated to be U.S. President Barack Obama’s intelligence chief said on Tuesday.

The warning by James Clapper at his Senate confirmation hearing for director of national intelligence put a spotlight on growing concern within the U.S. intelligence community and the Pentagon about what they see as the North’s increasingly unpredictable behavior.

After weeks of delay, the United States and South Korea have announced the start of large-scale military exercises next weekend in a show of force, but defense and intelligence officials acknowledge they have limited options to get Pyongyang to change course.

Obama nominated Clapper, who currently serves as undersecretary of defense for intelligence, in June after he ousted Admiral Dennis Blair from the intelligence post.

Blair’s 16-month tenure was marked by bureaucratic turf battles with the CIA and the White House, and sharp criticism over the intelligence community’s failure to prevent a botched Christmas Day attempt to blow up a U.S. airliner.

Several key lawmakers have voiced concerns about Clapper’s nomination but congressional officials said they expected him to be confirmed. Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein, one of the critics, said she would try to move the nomination “as quickly as possible.”

Congress created the director of national intelligence post in 2004 to oversee the 16 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community, including the CIA, in response to lapses exposed by the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. But critics say the post has never been given enough authority to be effective.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States is prepared to step up assistance to African Union forces in Somalia and take more aggressive action against al Shabaab Islamist rebels who carried out deadly bombings in Uganda earlier this month, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.

U.S. intelligence agencies have warned of growing links between al Shabaab in Somalia and al Qaeda’s network in East Africa, and the Obama administration has made it a priority to track and target top militants in both groups, officials said.

The expanded U.S. military assistance to African Union forces could include additional equipment, training, logistical support and information-sharing, said General William Ward, commander of U.S. Africa Command.

A U.S. counterterrorism official, speaking on condition of anonymity, suggested lethal operations targeting al Shabaab could expand as well.

“This terrorist group is primarily focused on targets in the region, but we can’t discount its aspirations to conduct operations elsewhere,” the official said, calling connections between al Shabaab and al Qaeda in Africa “deeply troubling.”

“It’s hard to figure out in some cases where one group ends and the other begins. They train together and obviously share the same penchant for hatred and violence. That’s why it’s critical that we take aggressive action to thwart them,” the counterterrorism official said.

“Our efforts are aggressive and have intensified.”

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States said on Monday it had transferred two men held at its military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for nearly 8 years to Algeria and Cape Verde, and rights groups said the one sent home to Algeria was transferred against his will and could be abused there.

The transfers announced by the Pentagon of Abdul Aziz Naji to Algeria and Abd-al-Nisr Mohammed Khantumani to the island of Cape Verde in West Africa bring the number of remaining detainees at Guantanamo to 178, down from 245 when U.S. President Barack Obama took office last year.

Naji’s case has been closely watched because he is the first detainee to be involuntarily repatriated by the Obama administration, according to Human Rights Watch. Other detainees who feared persecution at home were resettled in “safe” third countries, the group said.

Human Rights Watch said the Bush administration repatriated several detainees from Guantanamo against their will, some of whom were mistreated.

Naji, who has been held at Guantanamo since 2002, had told his lawyers that he did not want to return to Algeria under any circumstances because he feared persecution from the Algerian government and Islamist militants there.

The U.S. government had alleged that he belonged to the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group in Pakistan, but the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights said he has “long been cleared of any connection with terrorism.”

“We are deeply concerned that he will disappear into secret detention and face the threat of persecution by terrorist groups in Algeria,” said the center, which has represented many Guantanamo detainees.