National Guardsman, 21, suspected of being behind leaks of US intelligence files

It comes after a 21-year-old National Guardsman Jack Teixeira was named as the man believed to have led an online group of roughly 30 people where the documens were initially shared.

Earlier, U.S. President Joe Biden said investigators were closing in on the source of the leak of the classified documents on the war in Ukraine.

The Defense Department did not confirm his identity but said in a statement that, “We are aware of the investigation into the alleged role a Massachusetts Air National Guardsman may have played in the recent leak of highly-classified documents.”

The Biden administration has been working to assess the diplomatic and national security consequences of the leaked documents since they were first reported last week.

A top Pentagon spokesman told reporters earlier this week that the disclosures present a “very serious risk to national security,” and the Justice Department opened an investigation to identify the person responsible.

“We’re getting close,” President Joe Biden told reporters in Ireland on Thursday.

He said that though he was concerned that sensitive government documents had been disclosed, “there’s nothing contemporaneous that I’m aware of that is of great consequence.”

The chair of the Commons defence select committee has warned the leak which includes information about UK special forces could “endanger lives”.

The Ministry of Defence warned against taking allegations contained in the reported leak at “face value”.

But committee chair Tobias Ellwood told The Times: “Given our long-established lead in scale and capability when it comes to elite forces, it will come as no surprise that our special forces are doing much of the heavy lifting.

“But this deliberate, large-scale disclosure of sensitive material could easily endanger lives and should prompt an urgent review about who has access to sensitive information and how it is shared.”

It has been reported the document, dated March 23, indicates as many as 50 UK special forces personnel have been deployed to the country alongside other western special forces.

But the document reportedly does not state where the allegedly deployed forces are located or what they are doing.

Former special forces commander Dan Jarvis, who served in Afghanistan and is now the Labour MP for Barnsley Central, told The Times such operations are “by necessity shrouded in secrecy”.

He said: “Any compromise of secret material regarding their deployment or numerical strength is not only politically embarrassing but also militarily disadvantageous.

“It risks jeopardising the security and effectiveness of those operations and could put lives at risk.”