WikiLeaks releases 2.4 mn e-mails on Syria

Moscow, July 5 (IANS/RIA Novosti) Whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks said Thursday it has begun publishing more than 2.4 million e-mails from Syrian officials, government ministries and companies between August 2006 and March 2012.

The documents originate from 680 Syria-related entities or domain names, including those of the ministries of presidential affairs, foreign affairs, finance, information, transport and culture, WikiLeaks said.

"The material is embarrassing to Syria, but it is also embarrassing to Syria's opponents," WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was quoted as saying in a statement published on its website.

The archive "helps us not merely to criticise one group or another, but to understand their interests, actions and thoughts. It is only through understanding this conflict that we can hope to resolve it", Assange said.

The leaked documents include around 400,000 emails in Arabic and 68,000 emails in Russian, WikiLeaks said.

It stressed that "it is not possible to verify every single email at once", but that the group was "statistically confident that the vast majority of the data are what they purport to be".

All initial stories to be published have been verified, it said.

Assange has been fighting extradition from Britain, where he was arrested in 2010 at the request of Swedish authorities on rape and sex crime allegations.

He was released on bail and has taken refuge in the embassy of Ecuador in London. He has rejected a British police order to surrender and has applied for asylum in Ecuador.

--IANS/RIA Novosti

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