US plea to WikiLeaks: 'Don't post more documents'

A helpless White House on Friday implored WikiLeaks, which is reportedly in possession of 15,000 more classified documents on the Afghanistan war, not to post any more of the records, saying US national security and life of its soldiers and Afghan nationals were at risk.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said that all that the Obama administration can do to stop WikiLeaks from publishing more top-secret documents is to ask.

"We can do nothing but implore the person that has those classified, top secret documents not to post anymore," Gibbs said on NBC's Today Show on the biggest leak in US military history of classified documents.

The Obama administration has said that the leak of more than 90,000 classified documents did not reveal much new to the public, but it has endangered the lives of American soldiers and allies.

The website reportedly has about 15,000 more classified documents in its possession.

"You have Taliban spokesmen in the region today saying they're combing through those documents to find people that are cooperating with American and international forces," Gibbs said.

"They're

looking through those for names, they said they know how to punish those people," he said.

Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, has said his organisation held back thousands of documents in order to redact information that could put people at risk.

The Taliban on Friday said they would punish the informants who were collaborating with the NATO forces as revealed by the documents.

In his first remarks to the press after the sensitive documents became public on Sunday, Obama had expressed concern over disclosure of sensitive information from the battlefield that could potentially jeopardise individuals or operations.

"The fact is, these documents don't reveal any issues that haven't already informed our public debate on Afghanistan. Indeed, they point to the same challenges that led me to conduct an extensive review of our policy last fall," Obama said on Tuesday.

WikiLeaks has exposed Pakistani ISI's links with Afghan insurgents and Taliban, undermining US-led efforts to stabilise the war-torn nation. With over 90,000 US military documents leaked on the website, the expose is considered to be a huge embarrassment for the US.