The FBI has evidence that Larry Franklin, a person who has been working at the Pentagon may be a spy for Israel, senior U.S. officials have confirmed to CNN.
The worker could have been in a position to influence Bush administration policy toward Iran and Iraq, one of the officials said on Friday.
CBS News, which first reported the story, said the FBI had developed evidence, including photographs and conversations recorded through wiretaps.
The network said the alleged spy has ties to two senior Pentagon officials: Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith.
The Washington Post and the New York Times both quoted unnamed officials as saying the analyst was suspected of passing classified documents to Israel via the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the powerful pro-Israel lobby in Washington.
This would not be the first case involving an Israeli spy in the US. In 1986, a navy analyst, Jonathan Pollard, was jailed after he was found guilty of spying for Israel.
Pollard is believed to have provided Israeli intelligence with names of important American agents inside the former Soviet Union and Russia.
A number of key CIA agents in the eastern bloc were allegedly executed as a result of Pollard’s spying.
[Sources: CNN, Al Jazeera]
