WikiLeaks expected to release video of U.S. strike on children

The founder of whistle-blower website, WikiLeaks, says he will release a secret Pentagon video of a deadly airstrike on children in Afghanistan.

Julian Assange, the Australian-born man behind WikiLeaks, said Friday that the video shows how dozens of Afghan children are killed.

Assange is in hiding since reports revealed that the Pentagon is set on arresting him, after detaining a US military analyst alleged to have provided Wikileaks with a classified video of an American apache killing civilians in Iraq.

Bradley Manning, the US analyst, is also accused of having uploaded 260,000 pages of confidential diplomatic cables and intelligence assessments on the website.

Civilian death has become a major problem in Afghanistan with hundreds having been killed in Afghanistan in 2010.

A report by the UN says over 2,400 civilians were killed in Afghanistan in 2009, the largest number of civilian casualties since the 2001 US-led invasion.

Ninety five children were reported to have been among the 150 civilians killed in a US-led strike in the western province of Farah in May 2009. Afghan officials have confirmed the massacre.

The invasion of Afghanistan was launched with the official objective of curbing militancy and bringing peace and stability to the country. Nine years on, however, Afghanistan remains unstable and civilians continue to pay the price.

Wikileaks expected to release video of air strike in Afghanistan

As the founder of the whistleblower website WikiLeaks remains underground in fear that the U.S. will detain him, the site is preparing to release a leaked video of a U.S. airstrike in Afghanistan that is said to be more shocking than the Iraqi video that sent its controversial leader into hiding.

Founder Julian Assange has gone into hiding after posting U.S. military video. Julian Assange, who has been garnering more attention since it was announced that Pentagon investigators are looking for him, told his supporters in an email this week that he has a classified video of a U.S. attack on Afghan civilians.

In an interview airing today on "Brian Ross Investigates," a weekly investigative news magazine show airing on ABC News Now and Hulu.com, a member of the Icelandic Parliament who has worked closely with Assange said the Afghan video is expected to be released shortly.

Authorities fear unauthorized dump of classified U.S. cables

(This story has been updated to reflect new developments on Assange's whereabouts, including the cancelation of a scheduled appearance in Las Vegas.)

Pentagon investigators are trying to determine the whereabouts of the Australian-born founder of the secretive website Wikileaks for fear that he may be about to publish a huge cache of classified State Department cables that, if made public, could do serious damage to national security, government officials tell The Daily Beast.

The officials acknowledge that even if they found the website founder, Julian Assange, it is not clear what they could do to block publication of the cables on Wikileaks, which is nominally based on a server in Sweden and bills itself as a champion of whistleblowers.

“We’d like to know where he is; we’d like his cooperation in this,” one U.S. official said of Assange.

American officials said Pentagon investigators are convinced that Assange is in possession of at least some classified State Department cables leaked by a 22-year-old Army intelligence specialist, Bradley Manning of Potomac, Maryland, who is now in custody in Kuwait.

And given the contents of the cables, the feds have good reason to be concerned.