Afghan war logs: Wikileaks' editor Assange denies 'blood on (his) hands'

London, July 31 (ANI): The founder of the website Wikileaks, Julian Assange has rejected US claims that he has blood on his hands after releasing over 90,000 leaked classified documents on the Afghan war.

Julian Assange told the BBC there was no evidence that any informants had died as a result of the leaks.

He accused the Pentagon of trying to distract attention from the thousands of lives being lost in the war.

The White House has appealed to Wikileaks not to publish another 15,000 documents it is thought to hold.

Assange told the BBC's Newshour programme that the US government had presented no evidence that innocent people or informants had been harmed by the leaks.

"One must consider why the Pentagon is focusing on the hypothetical blood that it says might be on our hands - although there is no evidence of that - compared to the 20,000 lives that have been lost in Afghanistan that are documented and exposed by our material," Assange told the BBC.

The documents, which Wikileaks has dubbed the Afghan War Diary, were first described in news reports late last Sunday.

Among other revelations, they describe previously unreported civilian deaths, they claim members of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency have backed the Taliban in Afghanistan, and state that the Taliban has used surface-to-air missiles to down coalition aircraft.

On Thursday, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen expressed his outrage over the leaks at a press conference.

"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. (ANI)