US gives 'heads up' to India on documents leak

The US gave a heads up to India, besides Afghanistan and Pakistan, on the leak of more

than 90,000 classified US military documents on the war against terrorism, a senior administration official said.

The documents released by Wikileaks, which the Obama Administration termed a federal violation on Tuesday, further strengthens what top Indian officials have been saying for quite some time now that the Inter State Intelligence has links with the Al Qaeda, the Taliban and other extremist organisations.

"We also gave a heads-up to India," State Department spokesman P J Crowley told the media at his daily news briefing, as he said that the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan were also informed about the upcoming documents.

Both the White House and the state department acknowledged that they are concerned about the links between the ISI and the extremist elements.

"From the standpoint of India, India clearly, you know, wants to see, that Pakistan is taking steps to bring to justice those people that threaten neighbouring states," Crowley said.

"So, clearly, as we've said many, many times, if Pakistan wants to convince India that it has made this kind of fundamental change, bringing to justice those who are responsible for the Mumbai attack would be a very, very constructive and important step," he said in response to a question.

Noting that combating terrorism is an element of its relationship with India, likewise with Pakistan and Afghanistan, he said the US strongly believes that the proof is in what people do, not what people say.

"As we've highlighted here, the fact that Pakistan is taking aggressive action against insurgents within its own borders reflects their understanding that now insurgents threaten Pakistan itself," Crowley said.

The spokesman said the US continues to have conversations with Pakistan on bringing to justice those responsible for the Mumbai attack.

Meanwhile, a Pentagon spokesman condemned the leak of the classified documents and said the Defence Department has taken it very seriously and was reviewing and assessing the damages the leak of voluminous intelligence documents may have done to the defence forces.

"As they are made available, we will be looking at them to try to determine potential damage to lives of our service members and our coalition partners; whether they reveal sources in methods and any potential damage to national security," Marine Corps Col Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters.

"Since this was just released last night, we're still in the process going through that assessment," Lapan said.

Given that more than 92,000 documents were released, the spokesman said Pentagon would take weeks to make such determinations.

The Pentagon has discovered early in the investigation that the documents are classified at a 'secret' level, and not 'top-secret,' which is reserved for more sensitive material, he said.

"The disclosed documents reveal 'the type of reporting that goes on at the tactical level on a routine basis'. There's nothing we've seen so far that is particularly relevant," Lapan said.

The spokesman said Pentagon is concentrating on the information that has been made public, and is not investigating the source of the leak.

Pentagon regards army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning as a possible suspect in the leaking of these classified documents, he said.

"He (Manning) is certainly one person that we would be looking at in terms of this leak. He's not the only person. We've neither ruled in or ruled out PFC Manning. We're still assessing the documents to see if we can determine the source of the leak," Lapan said.

Manning, 22, was arrested late May after he was turned in by a former hacker he befriended online. The army analyst is said to have established direct contacts with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

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