U.S. military holds soldier in classified video leak

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier has been arrested in connection with the release of a classified video showing a 2007 helicopter attack that killed a dozen people in Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff, the U.S. military said on Monday.

Army Specialist Bradley Manning, 22, of Potomac, Maryland, who was deployed to Baghdad, is being held in pretrial confinement in Kuwait, "for allegedly releasing classified information," according to a U.S. military statement.

The statement did not provide details of the information in question but in an emailed response to a query, a U.S. official confirmed that the case involved a U.S. military videotape made public in April by WikiLeaks, a group that promotes the leaking of information to fight government and corporate corruption.

The gunsight video shows an attack by a U.S. Apache helicopter on a group of men in a square in a Baghdad neighborhood. The group included Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his assistant and driver, Saeed Chmagh, 40.

Wired magazine, which initially reported the arrest on its website on Sunday evening, said Manning, an intelligence analyst, came under suspicion after he told a former hacker during an email exchange that he had leaked the video. Wired did not disclose its sources but quoted from what it said Manning had written.

The magazine said Manning also claimed to have leaked other classified information, including video of a 2009 bombing in Afghanistan that killed dozens of civilians and 260,000 classified U.S. diplomatic cables.

Wired reported that WikiLeaks had previously acknowledged it was in possession of the bombing video. It said only one U.S. diplomatic cable had been posted by WikiLeaks.

There was no immediate comment from WikiLeaks, but a person involved with the group said WikiLeaks did not know if Manning used its services because all its sources are anonymous.

"Our legal advisers have started working on the case, and are verifying how much this military investigation is violating the rights of our sources and us," the person involved with WikiLeaks said in an email.