WikiLeaks says published all US cables on Internet
Anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks said on Friday it had published its full cache of more than 250,000 US diplomatic cables, which could be accessed through an Internet link without a password.
"RELEASE CABLEGATE2: 251,287 US embassy cables in searchable format," said a message on WikiLeaks' Twitter account.
It was not immediately clear whether WikiLeaks released all the cables without redacting them, as the group had threatened to do on Thursday.
The United States and human rights groups have warned that releasing unredacted cables containing the names of people who spoke in confidence to US diplomats could put the sources' lives in danger.
Despite repeated attempts by AFP, WikiLeaks could not be contacted for comment.
Earlier on Friday, WikiLeaks said it had released the files, but they could not be easily accessed and required specialist software. However, several hours later a link was posted on Twitter offering easy access to the cables.
WikiLeaks infuriated Washington last week when it released 134,000 of the cables, with many showing the unprotected names of informants and other individuals who had spoken to US diplomats.
The release came after WikiLeaks conducted an online poll Thursday of its Twitter followers to decide whether to dump its entire cache of US diplomatic cables.
The site decided on the move following a row with Britain's Guardian newspaper, one of its former media partners, which it blames for leaking the entire cache by revealing the password.
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The Guardian denied accusations by WikiLeaks that one of its journalists leaked the password.
In a sign of the broken relationship with the paper, WikiLeaks blamed the Guardian for leaking all of the diplomatic cables online containing details of informants and sources.
The Guardian, one of a handful of newspapers that began publishing redacted cables last year in cooperation with WikiLeaks, said it "utterly rejects any suggestion that it is responsible for the release of the unedited cables".
On Thursday, the Guardian urged WikiLeaks not to release unredacted cables.
The State Department said Thursday WikiLeaks had informed the United States in advance of the document releases, but ignored US appeals that making them public could endanger lives and put US national security at risk.
"We have made clear our views and concerns about illegally disclosed classified information and the continuing risk to individuals and national security that such releases cause," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.
(c) 2011 AFP