WASHINGTON, July 30, (AFP):  Under tight guard, a US soldier suspected of being at the center of a massive intelligence leak has been transferred from Kuwait to a cell at the Quantico Marine base to face tough questioning.

The Pentagon said 22-year-old Private First Class Bradley Manning arrived at the Virginia base Thursday night, after being transferred from Camp Arifjan, Kuwait.
Manning already faces four charges related to allegations he gave whistleblowers’ website WikiLeaks classified video showing a July 2007 US Apache helicopter strike in Baghdad that killed several people.
He is now also suspected of possible involvement in the bombshell leak to the same website of tens of thousands of classified documents related to the war in Afghanistan.
The Pentagon and the FBI have launched an investigation into the case, while US leaders and Afghan President Hamid Karzai have condemned the leak, citing fears that Afghan informants named in some of the documents could now be at risk.

Top military officer Admiral Mike Mullen on Thursday expressed outrage over the leak, saying the founder of the WikiLeaks website, Julian Assange, may have blood on his hands.
“Mr Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family,” he said.

Assange defended the release of the files in a statement broadcast on CNN Friday, and criticized Mullen and Defense Secretary Robert Gates for condemning the document releases.
“This behavior is unacceptable. We will not be suppressed. We will continue to release this,” he said.
US officials have also said they fear the leaks could compromise their ability to collect intelligence in Afghanistan if informants believe their identities could eventually become public.
The controversial founder of the website has said he hoped the Afghanistan documents would spark debate about the war and that his site had checked for named informants before distributing the papers.
Assange has called Manning a “political prisoner” and alleged the United States kept him in detention in Kuwait to render him “incommunicado.”
The graphic video of the helicopter attack was posted on the Internet by WikiLeaks in April this year, prompting an international outcry and renewed demands for compensation from the victims’ families.
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