GI Detained in Kuwait as Suspected WikiLeaks Source

(June 7) -- The person behind the most infamous leak of military secrets in recent years may be a 22-year-old American soldier serving in Iraq.

Bradley Manning, an Army specialist deployed with the 2nd Brigade 10th Mountain Division in Baghdad, has been detained in Kuwait in connection with allegations that he leaked classified information, according to the U.S. Army. The leaks may have involved providing classified documents and videos to the whistle-blower site WikiLeaks, according to Wired.com's Threat Level blog.

Wired.com, which was the first news organization to report on Manning's detainment, says the soldier from Maryland claimed to be behind the leaking of a classified video showing U.S. helicopter gunship strikes in Iraq that killed two Reuters employees. The release of the video propelled WikiLeaks into the national spotlight, with some hailing it as the future of journalism, and others decrying it as a possible security threat.

WikiLeaks, which promises anonymity to leakers, was apparently not involved in Manning's outing. Rather, Adrian Lamo, a former hacker, turned the alleged leaker in to the FBI and Army investigators after a series of online chats with Manning, in which the soldier reportedly bragged about releasing the video and numerous other classified documents.

"Hillary Clinton, and several thousand diplomats around the world are going to have a heart attack when they wake up one morning, and find an entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format, to the public," Manning allegedly wrote of his leaks, according to Wired.com.

The Army has not publicly commented on Manning's connection to WikiLeaks, but confirmed that he is being held and is under investigation. "He was placed in pretrial confinement for allegedly releasing classified information and is currently confined in Kuwait," the Army said in a statement posted on NPR's website.

An Army spokesman did not immediately return a call from AOL News regarding Manning's detainment.

A flurry of statements on the WikiLeaks Twitter page seemed to suggest that the organization might not even know the identity of the leaker, but added that if Manning was the leaker of the videos, "he's a national hero." Some of the tweets questioned various statements in the Wired.com article, such as the possibility that Manning had leaked over a quarter of a million classified U.S. Embassy cables.

WikiLeaks also took aim at Lamo for outing Manning to Wired.com and federal authorities, and at Kevin Poulsen, the Wired.com senior editor who co-wrote the article. "Adrian Lamo & Kevin Poulson [sic] are notorious felons, informers & manipulators. Journalists should take care," WikiLeaks' Twitter page read.

Poulsen is also a former hacker, who in the mid-1990s pleaded guilty to wire fraud, among other charges, and was sentenced to five years in prison.

Asked by e-mail if he had a comment on the article, Julian Assange, WikiLeak's editor and public face, accused Wired.com of not fully investigating Lamo's claims, or giving WikiLeaks adequate time to respond. "I don't expect you to understand," Assange told AOL News. "That might require integrity."

WikiLeaks' brazen tactics have drawn criticism even from advocates of transparency, like Steven Aftergood, who writes the Secrecy News blog at the Federation of American Scientists. Aftergood sees news of Manning's arrest as another possible flaw in what has been presented by WikiLeaks as an alternative to traditional whistle-blowing.

"It suggests that the WikiLeaks model of anonymous leaking is not foolproof," Aftergood told AOL News in an e-mail. "It can be defeated by the leaker himself."