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Officials who spoke with The Post expressed frustration that the additional loss of life in the Middle East is not reflected in the Defense Department’s casualty database.More American service members have died in the Middle East during the ongoing Iran war than the Pentagon has disclosed publicly, according to six U.S. officials familiar with the Defense Department’s internal casualty accounting data. Five of the officials said there have been at least 22 military fatalities — four more than what appears in the Pentagon’s public database, known as the Defense Casualty Analysis System, or DCAS. A sixth official, who like the...

CIA had doubts about Israeli intelligence on a threat to Trump in Turkey that prompted an extraordinary secret flight.U.S. intelligence officials were skeptical of an Iranian assassination threat against President Donald Trump that was relayed by Israel and prompted an extraordinary clandestine maneuver that saw him secretly fly out of Turkey in an alternate military aircraft, current and former U.S. officials familiar with the intelligence said.The assassination threat was relayed by the Israeli government to the CIA, where analysts did not view the intelligence as compelling and conveyed that skepticism to Trump administration officials, one of the officials said.Another official...

Iran’s government is unlikely to feel significant impact or soften its negotiating position as a result of new rounds of U.S. military strikes like those now underway, according to a new intelligence assessment described by current and former U.S. officials.

The Director’s Initiative Group has expressed an interest in gaining access to emails and chat logs of the largest U.S. intelligence agencies to root out “weaponization,” according to multiple people familiar with the effort.A special team created by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has expressed a desire to gain access to emails and chat logs of the largest U.S. spy agencies with the aim of using AI tools to ferret out what the administration deems as efforts to undermine its agenda, according to several people familiar with the matter.The mission of the Director’s Initiative Group, or DIG, is to...

An audio recording obtained by The Washington Post is a window into the covert campaign by Israeli intelligence to intimidate and divide Iranian military officials.In the hours after Israel launched its first wave of strikes against Iran on June 13, killing top military leaders and nuclear scientists, Israeli intelligence operatives launched a covert campaign to intimidate senior officials with the apparent aim of dividing and destabilizing Tehran’s theocratic regime, according to three people familiar with the operation. People working for Israel’s security services who speak Persian, Iran’s primary language, called senior Iranian officials on their cellphones and warned them that...

The audacious attacks on Russian airfields highlight the power of unconventional, asymmetric warfare — and the threat to U.S. strategic bases and ports, experts say.Ukraine’s surprise Sunday strike that used relatively inexpensive drones to knock out a significant portion of Russia’s long-range bomber capability was arguably the single largest blow to Moscow in its three-year war on its neighbor and a stunning display of asymmetric warfare. The out-of-the-blue drone blitz elicited glee among Ukraine’s backers in Washington, but also a chilling realization: The United States is increasingly vulnerable to just such a low-tech, low-cost strike. “The Pentagon should be very...

WASHINGTON—The National Security Agency strongly dissented from other intelligence agencies’ assessment that Russia paid bounties for the killing of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, according to people familiar with the matter. The disclosure of the dissent by the NSA, which specializes in electronic eavesdropping, comes as the White House has played down the revelations, saying that the information wasn’t verified and that intelligence officials didn’t agree on it.

Porter Goss' initial moves as CIA director appear to herald a post-election purge at the already troubled spy agency, according to current and former top U.S. intelligence officials. Goss, a former Republican congressman, has put at least four former Capitol Hill Republican staffers into top positions in his CIA office and has given them broad authority to make personnel and restructuring decisions, the current and former intelligence officials said. One of the aides, whose identity Knight Ridder is not disclosing because he served under cover, has been "going around telling people they are to fire 80 to 90 people" in...