The Military Advocate General, Brigadier General Avichai Mandelblitt, on Wednesay instructed the army's criminal investigation department and the General Staff's department of information security to open a new investigation into leaks to media during the Lebanon war.

Chief of Staff Dan Halutz welcomed the decision.

Sources close to Halutz are ascribing the decision to open an investigation to several incidents which occurred during the war, including a report that media sources knew about the special units' operations before they were executed, and before they were reported by Lebanese media.

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A statement from the IDF spokesperson's office said "a number of incidents that took place during the war caused the suspicion that military sources were in contact with journalists in violation of army regulations, and passed on information without permission and in a way that could endanger human life."

Halutz added that he views with seriousness the incidents involving officers in direct contact with journalists who leak information without authorization.

Halutz has been waging a campaign against army leaks for several months.

The chief of staff recently told a group of generals that he had ordered transcripts from General Staff security intelligence to determine who spoke to the media without permission, and with which media sources.

An investigation into the relevant departments' conduct has revealed that 460 officers conversed with journalists by telephone during the war.

Senior officers said recently that they doubt whether Halutz is genuinely concerned by security threats presented by the leaks, and called the efforts a scare campaign, the goal of which is to deter officers from criticizing the chief of staff to journalists.

The officers said the high number of leaks indicates that the phenomenon is widespread enough to require that it be given attention from the army's upper echelon.

Several officers even wondered aloud whether Halutz, in previous positions, always spoke to media outlets through