WASHINGTON: US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s use of commercial messaging app Signal to discuss strikes on Yemen risked compromising sensitive information and could have put troops at risk, the Pentagon’s independent watchdog said on Thursday.

The report piles further pressure on Hegseth, who is already under fire over US strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats that experts say amount to extrajudicial killings.

“The secretary sent nonpublic DoD information identifying the quantity and strike times of manned US aircraft over hostile territory over an unapproved, unsecure network approximately two to four hours before the execution of those strikes,” the inspector general’s office said in a report, using an abbreviation for the Department of Defense.

“Using a personal cell phone to conduct official business and send nonpublic DoD information through Signal risks potential compromise of sensitive DoD information, which could cause harm to DoD personnel and mission objectives,” it said.

Hegseth declined to be interviewed as part of the inspector general’s investigation, which was sparked by the Atlantic magazine’s revelation in March that its editor-in-chief, Jeffrey Goldberg, was inadvertently included in a Signal chat in which officials, including Hegseth and then-national security advisor Mike Waltz, discussed the strikes. The magazine initially withheld the details that the officials discussed, but later published them after the White House insisted that no classified information was shared and attacked Goldberg as a liar.

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2025