WSJ: Israel provided intel for US strike on Houthi official mentioned in Signal chat
According to report, Israeli officials have privately expressed dismay at security breach, as Republican and Democrat lawmakers demand probe into incident
Information on US airstrikes leaked by senior US officials in a group chat that accidentally included a journalist was reportedly based on Israeli intelligence drawn from a human source in Yemen, the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday.
The report, citing two US officials, said that Israel provided intelligence from an individual in Yemen about a senior Houthi figure who was targeted in the March 15 US airstrike discussed in the group chat on the Signal messaging app.
Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of the Atlantic magazine, revealed this week that he had been accidentally added to a conversation in Signal by national security adviser Mike Waltz, which then revealed classified details of an upcoming US airstrike on Yemen.
The Atlantic published a number of the messages sent in the conversation, including one from Waltz writing on March 15 that “the first target – their top missile guy – we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed.”
According to the newspaper, Israeli intelligence assisted the US in identifying and eliminating the suspect in question.
A US official quoted by the WSJ said that Israeli officials have privately complained to their US counterparts over the security breach and the now-public nature of Waltz’s messages.
The White House has publicly asserted that none of the information shared on Signal was classified, even though officials have provided no evidence that that’s the case.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told reporters in Hawaii he had not texted “war plans” or “attack plans” in the Signal group, pointing out he had called his post a “team update.”
Two days after its original story — and in the wake of US officials insisting that the information shared was not classified — The Atlantic published a follow-up sharing detailed messages sent in the Signal group chat, including a timeline of the strikes before they were carried out and the types of planes and missiles being used, shared by Hegseth.
US President Donald Trump has stood by Waltz, describing the incident as a “glitch” and saying that the national security adviser “has learned a lesson, and he’s a good man.”
He later described the intense media coverage of the incident and sharp criticism as being “all a witch hunt.”
The top Republican and Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee requested an investigation Thursday into the incident, ensuring at least some bipartisan scrutiny on the episode.
Sen. Roger Wicker, the Republican chair of the committee, and Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat, signed onto a letter to the acting inspector general at the Department of Defense for an inquiry into the potential “use of unclassified networks to discuss sensitive and classified information, as well as the sharing of such information with those who do not have proper clearance and need to know.”
Meanwhile, the Justice Department, which has traditionally handled investigations into the mishandling of classified or sensitive information by both Republican and Democratic administrations, showed that under Trump it would likely stay on the sidelines. When asked at an unrelated news conference what the Justice Department plans to do, Attorney General Pam Bondi deflected, saying the mission was ultimately a success.
