The top officials from the Trump administration shared detailed plans for military strikes on Yemen in a group chat (Signal platform) that mistakenly included the editor-in-chief of the prominent US media outlet, reports said.
The media official is said to be Jeffrey Goldberg, who said he received a connection request on the Signal messaging service on March 11 from someone identifying himself as National Security Advisor Mike Waltz.
Goldberg said he was later added to a group chat that included key national security officials of US President Donald Trump’s administration.
He said that the individual identifying himself as the defence secretary Pete Hegseth posted secret sensitive operational details of the upcoming strikes on Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
He said the plan shared by the Hegseth included the information about the targets, weapons the US would be deploying, and sequence of attacks to be carried out by the naval forces of the US strike group.
Goldberg added, “The attacks on March 15 took place roughly two hours after he received a message about the plans.”
Members of the chat group are said to have celebrated the successful operation, with an account labelled as Waltz posting emojis of a fist, an American flag, and fire.
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Meanwhile, the White House National Security Council said in a statement that the message thread "appears to be authentic."
It added that the success of the US military operation against the Houthis "demonstrates that there were no threats to our service members or our national security."
Furthermore, the leaks to a third party and the use of commercial messaging apps outside government communication channels are raising concerns over how the Donald Trump administration is managing confidential information.
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