Israel provided intelligence on Houthi’s ‘top missile guy’ attacked by US

‘The first target — their top missile guy — we had positive ID of him walking into girlfriend’s building, and it’s now collapsed.’

By Vered Weiss, World Israel News

Israel provided intelligence about a Houthi official mentioned in the Signal chat group that was leaked to the press, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

The source was a person in Yemen who provided information about a Houthi official targeted by a U.S. airstrike.

The text message on Signal said, “Typing too fast. The first target — their top missile guy — we had positive ID of him walking into girlfriend’s building, and it’s now collapsed.”

The text was one of many that seemed to detail U.S. military plans on the Signal messaging group, and it was mistakenly shared with Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief at The Atlantic. 

Goldberg published the texts posted on the chat that was titled, “Houthi PC small group.”

The chat included discussions between Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, CIA Director John Ratcliffe and National Security Adviser Mike Waltz.

On Monday, the US National Security Council said it was reviewing the leak in a statement: “At this time, the message thread that was reported appears to be authentic, and we are reviewing how an inadvertent number was added to the chain.”

In an article, Goldberg said he was surprised he was added to the group on March 13 and initially suspected it was part of a disinformation campaign. However, he then realized the messages were authentic when they were from prominent members of the Trump administration.

Officials downplayed the leak. Hegseth made disparaging remarks about Goldberg, referring to him as a “so-called journalist.”

“Nobody was texting war plans, and that’s all I have to say about that,” he added.

“The thread demonstrates the deep and thoughtful policy coordination between senior officials. The ongoing success of the Houthi operation demonstrates that there were no threats to our service members or our national security,” the National Security Council said in the statement.