Facebook leak causes canceled Israeli raid

Soldier's status update says, "On Wednesday we clean up Qatanah," disclosing classified information

The Israeli military canceled a military raid on a West Bank town on Wednesday, reported Israel’s Army Radio, because a soldier had disclosed details of the operation on his Facebook page.

"On Wednesday we clean up Qatanah, and on Thursday, god willing, we come home," wrote the soldier in a status update, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz. He even revealed the exact combat unit that would be carrying out the raid. Other soldiers reported the update to their military superiors, who canceled the raid with concerns that hostile groups might have seen the update.

Court-martialed, the soldier has been sentenced to ten days in prison.

The Israeli military says it will be cracking down on soldiers' use of social sites, as it kicks off a campaign to warn its soldiers of the danger in disclosing classified information via the Web.

This news comes less than a week after the Pentagon made the decision to allow soldiers to access networking sites like Facebook and Twitter, the blogosphere, and other other sites focused on social interaction. Six months earlier, the Marines had banned Twitter, probably fearing complications of the sort that the Israeli army has just had to face.

Under the current policy, commanders can still remove access at any time, if only temporarily, if they believe it will offer extra-needed protection for a mission or to preserve bandwidth.

Today's incident in Israel reveals just how sensitive social networking usage can be for the military. While commanders don't necessarily want to cut off their soldiers, at the same time, it is almost too easy to disclose information online.