United States documents leak of the War in Afghanistan

The Afghan War documents leak, also called the Afghan War Diary, is a collection of internal U.S. military logs of the War in Afghanistan, which was published by WikiLeaks on 25 July 2010.[1][2] The logs consist of over 91,000[3] Afghan War documents, covering the period between January 2004 and December 2009. Most of the documents are classified secret.[2] As of 28 July 2010, only 75,000 of the documents have been released to the public, a move which WikiLeaks says is "part of a harm minimization process demanded by [the] source".[4][5] Prior to releasing the initial 75,000 documents, WikiLeaks made the logs available to The Guardian,[6][7] The New York Times[8] and Der Spiegel in its German and English online edition,[9][10] which published reports in line with an agreement made earlier the same day, 25 July 2010.[11][12]

The leak, which is considered to be one of the largest in U.S. military history,[6][13] revealed information on the deaths of civilians, increased Taliban attacks, and involvement by Pakistan and Iran in the insurgency.[1][14][15] WikiLeaks did not review all of the records before release because of the volume of material. A WikiLeaks spokesman said they "just can't imagine that someone could go through 76,000 documents."[16][17] WikiLeaks says it does not know the source of the leaked data.[18] The three outlets which had received the documents in advance, The New York Times, The Guardian, and Der Spiegel, have all concluded that they are genuine when compared with independent reports.[1]

The New York Times described the leak as "a six-year archive of classified military documents [that] offers an unvarnished and grim picture of the Afghan war". The Guardian called the material "one of the biggest leaks in U.S. military history ... a devastating portrait of the failing war in Afghanistan, revealing how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, Taliban attacks have soared and NATO commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency".[6] Der Spiegel wrote that "the editors in chief of Spiegel, The New York Times and The Guardian were 'unanimous in their belief that there is a justified public interest in the material'."[1]

Some time after the first dissemination by WikiLeaks, the U.S. Justice Department considered using the U.S. Espionage Act of 1917 to prevent WikiLeaks from posting the remaining 15,000 secret war documents it claimed to possess.[19][20][21]

  1. ^ a b c d Gebauer, Matthias; Goetz, John; Hoyng, Hans; Koelbl, Susanne; Rosenbach, Marcel; Schmitz, Gregor Peter (25 July 2010). "Explosive Leaks Provide Image of War from Those Fighting It". Der Spiegel. Archived from the original on 30 June 2011. Retrieved 27 July 2010.
  2. ^ a b "Piecing Together the Reports, and Deciding What to Publish". The New York Times. 25 July 2010. Archived from the original on 26 February 2012. Retrieved 26 July 2010.
  3. ^ "Afghan War diary". WikiLeaks. 25 July 2010. Archived from the original on 1 January 2020. Retrieved 28 May 2015.
  4. ^ "S. Africa suspected of Taliban fundraising: memo". CBC News. 26 July 2010. Archived from the original on 6 December 2014. Retrieved 27 July 2010.
  5. ^ "Afghan War Diary, 2004–2010". WikiLeaks. 25 July 2010. Archived from the original on 6 February 2012. Retrieved 28 February 2012.
  6. ^ a b c Cite error: The named reference GuardianLeaks was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ "Afghanistan: The war logs". The Guardian. London. 4 August 2010. Archived from the original on 30 July 2010. Retrieved 3 August 2010.
  8. ^ Mazzetti, Mark; Perlez, Jane; Schmitt, Eric; Lehren, Andrew W. (25 July 2010). "The War Logs". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 2 March 2018. Retrieved 23 February 2017.
  9. ^ Politik (25 July 2010). "Enthüllung brisanter Kriegsdokumente – Die Afghanistan-Protokolle". Spiegel.de. Archived from the original on 26 July 2010. Retrieved 2 July 2013.
  10. ^ "The Afghanistan Protocol: Explosive Leaks Provide Image of War from Those Fighting It". 25 July 2010. Archived from the original on 27 July 2010 – via Spiegel Online.
  11. ^ "Afghanistan war logs: How the Guardian got the story". The Guardian. London. 25 July 2010. Archived from the original on 27 May 2024. Retrieved 26 July 2010.
  12. ^ "Datablog + Afghanistan: The war logs". London. Archived from the original on 29 July 2010. Retrieved 20 May 2013.
  13. ^ "From One Transparency Advocate to Another". Onthemedia.org. 30 July 2010. Archived from the original on 28 June 2011. Retrieved 2 July 2013.
  14. ^ "Afghan war log leak: Around the web". CBC News. 26 July 2010. Archived from the original on 6 December 2014. Retrieved 23 July 2010.
  15. ^ Cite error: The named reference iran-accus was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  16. ^ Rich, Nathaniel (1 December 2010). "The American Wikileaks Hacker". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on 18 March 2023. Retrieved 18 March 2023.
  17. ^ Shenon, Philip (3 August 2010). "WikiLeaks' Julian Assange Wants Pentagon to Help". The Daily Beast. Archived from the original on 27 May 2024. Retrieved 18 March 2023.
  18. ^ "WikiLeaks: We don't know source of leaked data". Associated Press. 28 July 2010. Archived from the original on 2 August 2010. Retrieved 28 July 2010.
  19. ^ "The Justice Department weighs a criminal case against WikiLeaks". The Washington Post. 18 August 2010. Archived from the original on 26 February 2017. Retrieved 23 August 2017.
  20. ^ "US to use Espionage Act against WikiLeaks". News.oneindia.in. 18 August 2010. Archived from the original on 8 October 2012. Retrieved 2 July 2013.
  21. ^ "Espionage Act of 1917". Answers.com. Archived from the original on 18 May 2013. Retrieved 2 July 2013.

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