An edict issued Wednesday by Iranian authorities orders Isfahan’s one-and-a-half million people to leave the city “because pollution has now reached emergency levels,” the BBC reported.

However, outside observers suspect that the evacuation order may corroborate previous reports indicating that a uranium enrichment facility near Isfahan had been leaking radioactive material.

Tehran went to great lengths in December to deny these reports, telling state-run media outlets that “the rumors about leaking and contamination at Isfahan’s [Uranium Conversion Facility] are not true at all.”

November reports indicated that a radioactive leak might have poisoned several workers at the nuclear plant, which converts highly toxic yellowcake uranium into material that could be used in the core of a nuclear weapon.

The head of Iran’s emergency services agency said at the time that residents have no reason to worry about possible contamination resulting from a possible leak.

Stories about the potential leak soon disappeared from state-run news websites, Trend reported in late November.

Iranian officials denied that a leak has occurred and blamed Western media outlets for creating “tumult” in the region.

Wednesday’s evacuation order is now fueling concerns that Iranian officials are trying to hide something, including further fallout from a possible radioactive leak.

“Pollution in Isfahan is a problem but in the past, Iranian authorities respond by closing schools and the government to keep people at home and let the pollution dissipate, not by evacuating people,” said Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser on Iran and Iraq who has written about Isfahan’s battle against pollution.

“Mass evacuations suggest a far more serious problem,” Rubin explained. “There are two possibilities here: There is a radiation leak and the regime is lying or there is really bad pollution and no one believes the regime’s explanations.”

Rubin also pointed out that Iranian officials have a history of lying to both Western officials and their own citizens.

It remains unclear whether the technology has been properly inspected for safety because Iran has denied Western officials access to many of its nuclear sites.

The nuclear site at Isfahan has been targeted for attack in the past.

An unexplained explosion at the plant in 2011 is reported to have damaged the facility.

The nuclear plant also sits on an active fault line. The city of Isfahan has been destroyed at least six times from past earthquakes, a point of concern among regional experts.

“Given that Iran is on an earthquake zone and has lost tens of thousands of people with regularity suggests that a devastating nuclear accident is only a matter of time,” said Rubin.

The Israeli Defense Forces’ (IDF) principal objective in Gaza is to rid Palestinian terrorists of sophisticated Iranian-produced rockets that are capable of striking deep into Israel’s heartland, including Jerusalem and Tel Aviv.

These rockets originated in Sudan and were then smuggled into Gaza with Iran’s help, sources said.

The existence of these advanced Fajr-5 rockets reveals the deepening ties between Iran and its terrorist proxies in Gaza and Sudan, where the rockets were housed before shipment.

“To put it simply, it was Iranian-made Fajr-5s, imported via Sudan, that prompted this war,” said Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. “Iran’s fingerprints are all over this.”

Hamas terrorists in Gaza were provided around 100 Fajr-5 rockets by Iran. The rockets are capable of travelling nearly 50 miles, putting both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv within their reach. These missiles differ drastically from the crude rockets typically fired by Hamas terrorists.

The Fajr-5 missiles are believed to have been smuggled from Sudan into Gaza via Egypt’s porous Sinai region.

Sudan, a longtime ally of Iran, acted as a “key transit point” for these weapons, Schanzer said.

“[Sudanese capital] Khartoum has long been a transit point for Iranian-made rockets to Gaza,” he said. “The smuggling route goes up through Egypt and across the Sinai [desert] into the tunnels and into Gaza.”

Israel was the prime suspect after a weapons facility in south Khartoum mysteriously exploded in late October. The Jewish state’s attack on the Yarmouk military manufacturing facility was preventive in nature, experts said.

“I am convinced that the October bombing of an IRGC weapons factory in Khartoum was part one of this operation,” Schanzer said. “The Israelis learned of a large cache of Fajr-5s and destroyed it there.”

“But it appears that around 100 of them had already made it into Gaza,” he added. “This prompted the Israelis hunt down the Fajrs during this latest round of fighting.”

Several of the Fajr-5 missiles have landed near Jerusalem in the last week. Others have crashed by Tel Aviv, forcing more than a million Israelis to take refuge in bomb shelters.

Smuggling has become easier and less restricted in Gaza following the fall of former Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, who was known to bar the passage of sophisticated weaponry such as the Fajr-5 missiles.

“One of the main ways that Hamas acquires weapons is via an extensive network of tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border,” the Israeli Defense Forces stated in a report earlier this month. “Since Hamas seized power in the Gaza Strip in 2007, the terrorist group’s smuggling efforts have increased. With funding from Iran, Hamas has improved its stockpile of weapons.”

Israel’s current military incursion into Gaza is different from its 2008 Operation Cast Lead, Schanzer said.

“Cast Lead was about Israel sustaining too many rockets” from Gaza, he said. “This is about Israel trying to get rid of a certain kind of rocket. They had a very specific goal here.”

Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren condemned Iran’s arming of Hamas in a recent interview with Fox News.

“Our problem is not our border with Gaza,” Fox News quoted Oren saying on Monday. “Among the rockets being fired at us are the Fajr-5 rockets, which come directly from Iran. We know that Hamas terrorists have trained with the Iranians. There’s a strong connection.”

Terrorists in the Gaza Strip have also made use of Iranian-made M-75 rockets, which have reached areas near Jerusalem. The long-range rockets are believed to have been assembled with Iran’s help.

It was believed that Iran pulled funding for Hamas as economic sanctions and other factors lightened Tehran’s purse.

“There’s a prevailing assumption in Washington that Iran has been on the out with Hamas and that is absolutely wrong,” Schanzer said. “Iran likely never left because it probably took months to smuggle these [weapons] in—the surprise here is that Iran is still very much a player in Gaza”

Fighting in Gaza dovetailed with a series of military drills in Iran that are being viewed as a warning to the West.

Iran has also helped hackers in the Gaza Strip launch cyber attacks on Israel, according to reports.

“The Iranians may not have ordered the day and hour for Hamas to launch its missiles, but they have been the guiding hand behind Hamas’ rearmament,” said Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser on Iran and Iraq.

Others believe Israel’s campaign in Gaza is a prelude to an attack on Iran. The IDF has launched more than 1,300 air assaults on targets in Gaza.

“The last 6 days of fighting may in fact be a prelude to what looks like an increasingly inevitable military strike against Iran’s nuclear program,” said Jennifer Griffin of Fox News on Monday.

Iran’s increased presence in Gaza creates a new reality for Israel.

“Those who deny Iranian involvement with Hamas are like the new Truthers, those who couldn’t be convinced that Al Qaeda was responsible for 9/11 no matter how many times Bin Laden claimed credit,” said Rubin. “Let’s just hope the White House and Langley aren’t filled with these new Truthers.”

Israel is “running out of targets” after launching more than 1,300 coordinated attacks on terrorist entities and weapons facilities in the Gaza Strip since the start of Operation Pillar of Defense, Harel told reporters during a conference call organized by the Israel Project Monday.

“We are moving quite fast to a turning point,” he said.

While it is legal according to international law for Israel to target sites in highly populated areas, “it wouldn’t be moral or very smart of the Israel side,” Harel said. Israel will have to decide whether to escalate hostilities or strike a truce with Hamas. 

“It’s thinner and thinner and we will have to decide what to do,” he said. “We are about 24 to 48 hours from this junction.”

More than 30,000 Israeli troops remain at the Israel-Gaza border in the event a full-scale ground incursion is ordered. Nearly 75,000 IDF reservists also are on stand-by should a ground assault be necessary to stop Hamas’ attacks.

Hamas would face “a lot of casualties” if Israeli forces launch a ground operation, Harel said, adding that such an operation would “be bad for both sides.”

Hamas continues to fire hundreds of rockets at Israeli citizens: A rocket struck a school early Tuesday in Ashkelon, a town in Israel’s southern region that is regularly targeted by Hamas militants.

More than 90 schools, 61 kindergartens, and three million Israeli citizens are within striking distance of Hamas, according to the Israel Project. Nearly 2,000 rockets and mortars have struck Israel thus far in 2012.

Militants have launched 45 rockets at Israel since the early morning hours of Monday and nearly 900 have fallen since the IDF began its military operation last week, according to an IDF spokesperson.

Three Iranian-made Fajr-5 rockets were fired towards Tel Aviv on Sunday, further revealing Iran’s role in the arming of Hamas terrorists.

Israel has made a concerted effort to avoid civilian causalities in Gaza and has treated Palestinian patients in its own hospitals, according to reports.

It also has delivered multiple truckloads of humanitarian aid into Gaza during the conflict, including medical equipment and food, according to the Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Hamas has increased its anti-Semitic propaganda since hostilities began.

“From the Al-Qassam Brigades to the Zionist soldiers: The Al-Qassam Brigades love death more than you love life,” the terror group said in a video message broadcast on Al-Aqsa TV, according to Palestinian Media Watch (PMW).

Another video promises fierce reprisals on Israeli soldiers and citizens.

“Oh occupier, we are coming towards you. Leave our land,” the video states, according to PMW. “All of Palestine is ours. There is nothing here for you but death. There is nothing here for you but to be killed and to leave.”

Hamas has been launching rockets near civilian homes, mosques, and schools in an effort to increase causalities among its own people, according to footage it recently broadcast on Al-Aqsa TV.

Iran has sought to stoke tensions since hostilities broke out, providing Hamas terrorists with sophisticated weaponry and urging other Arab countries to send troops into Palestine.

“Regional countries should send their forces, weapons, and equipment to the Palestinian people so that they will be used for confrontation with the Zionist regime instead of being used to cause attrition and confrontation between two Muslim groups in Syria,” Ali Larijani, chair of Iran’s parliament, was quoted as saying on Sunday according to the Mehr News Agency.

Larijani also took aim at President Barack Obama in his remarks.

“U.S. President Barack Obama fulfilled its shameful election pledge [to support] the Zionist regime through expressing satisfaction with the attacks, and after getting the go-ahead from the West, the Zionist regime presumptuously organized a savage attack and openly announced that it would mount an operation due to the Palestinian resistance’s military capability,” he was quoted as saying.

Iran’s Air Defense unit successfully fired a newly modified S-200 missile at a jet engine drone during a simulation of a possible attack on American or Israeli fighter planes, according to Iran’s Fars News Agency. The system reportedly is capable of targeting aircraft flying at mid and high altitudes.

“The S-200 missile is a surface-to-air long-rang missile which is able to counter strategic aircrafts and semi-ballistic missiles,” Brigadier General Farzad Esmaeili was quoted telling reporters, according to the Mehr News Agency.

The drills began on Monday and are aimed at highlighting a handful of new domestically produced missile and defense systems capable of repelling an attack by Western nations.

An estimated 8,000 Iranian military forces are said to be participating in the drills, which are noteworthy for both their scope and scale.

Iran test-fired “medium-range and low-altitude missile systems” during Tuesday’s military display, according to separate reports.

Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) and its Armed Forces jointly conducted an air drill Tuesday, according to Mehr.

Military leaders also revealed a new domestically manufactured artillery system that is capable of hitting targets “with pinpoint accuracy” that “cannot be detected by the enemy’s tracking systems,” according to the report.

The unveiling of these advanced weapons and missiles is believed to be a warning to America and Israel against conducting a military strike on Iran’s nuclear sites.

“Too often, the White House and Pentagon look at these Iranian exercises and conclude they have more time, especially when something the Iranians try goes wrong,” said Michael Rubin, a former Pentagon adviser on Iran and Iraq. “This policy of procrastination is no substitute for strategy, however—after all, the Iranians can learn just as much from their mistakes as they can from their successes.”

The use of new missile systems indicates that Iran continues to have success building weaponry domestically despite Western economic sanctions.

“At the very least, the exercises show the trajectory in which the Iranian military would like to go,” Rubin said. “The exercises also should underline the notion that Iran’s indigenous arms industry is formidable and that sanctions alone will not be able to stop the regime.”

Iran also unveiled on Tuesday a missile system reportedly capable of striking air targets, Mehr reported.

The new “Mersad” system “uses domestically manufactured Shahin missiles, which are even more advanced than the 1970s-era U.S.-manufactured Hawk missiles,” the report states.

These new weapons systems should be viewed with caution, Rubin said.

“We can pooh-pooh Iran’s conventional weaponry but should the regime develop nukes, all the regional states will be facing these new conventional missiles and systems every hour of every day, as the Iranians conclude that no one would dare retaliate against a country that has its own nuclear deterrent.”

Iranian military leaders have used the drills as an occasion to threaten the U.S.

“The era of military threats of the United States is past,” Major General Hassan Firouzabadi said on Tuesday, accordingto Mehr.

The major drills also come on the heels of a military flare up between the U.S. and Iran.

Iran fired on an unmanned American surveillance drone earlier this month, according to reports. This was the first such attack by the Iranian regime.

Firouzabadi referred to the incident as a sign of Iran’s regional strength.

“We observed that the forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran powerfully shot at the U.S. drone and gave a firm response to them,” Mehr quoted him as saying.

Iran has increased both its military bluster and capabilities in recent months.

“There’s a lot of chatter out there about possible diplomatic breakthroughs with Iran,” said Rubin. “And in the corridors of [the State Department], there’s hope that the Iranians will somewhere, somehow reach out for Obama’s outstretched hand.”

The country’s oil output is said to have risen in October after seven straight months of plummeting sales.

Iran’s continued aggression should be viewed as a sign of things to come, Rubin said.

“It’s hard to accuse the Iranians of deceit,” he said. “After all, they signal their intentions every day. And these military exercises are that signal.”

November’s election cost a handful of staunchly pro-Israel lawmakers their political careers. A younger crowd of liberal lawmakers who view Israel as the chief obstacle to peace in the Middle East is now entering Congress, sources say.

“It’s a huge concern,” said Rep. Joe Walsh (R., Ill.). Walsh lost his reelection bid to Democrat Tammy Duckworth, who was endorsed by the controversial liberal fringe group J Street. “It’s a real worry that this next Congress will not be as pro-Israel.”

J Street advocates for increased U.S. pressure on Israel. The group flexed its political muscle in 71 congressional races this year, doling out more than $1.8 million in campaign contributions.

Seventy of J Street’s 71 endorsees won their elections. All of the endorsees were Democrats.

Among J Street’s chief targets were Walsh and Tea Party firebrand Rep. Allen West (R., Fla.), who also was defeated.

“J Street got incredibly active this cycle, especially with Allen West and myself,” Walsh said. “Clearly, in J Street’s little silly world, I was their biggest scalp. They’re ecstatic I am no longer there. They’re still fringe, but less so.”

It is not only vocal and occasionally controversial figures such as Walsh and West who are exiting. Veteran pro-Israel legislators such as Rep. Steve Rothman (D., N.J.) and Sen. Joe Lieberman (I., Conn.) are giving up their seats as well.

Also leaving are Rep. Howard Berman (D., Calif.) of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs and Rep. Gary Ackerman (D., N.Y.) of the House Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia. Ackerman has said that J Street “is so open minded about what constitutes support for Israel that its brains have fallen out.”

Sources said the loss of these powerful pro-Israel allies is likely to have repercussions.

Rothman sat on the House Appropriations Committee, which decides how much money will be spent on U.S. military aid to Israel. He was widely known to champion the U.S.-Israel military alliance behind closed doors and often secured increased aid for the Jewish state’s critical defense programs.

“We’re losing some of the House’s top pro-Israel leaders,” one former Democratic Hill staffer said. “There’s going to be a tough void to fill—the pro-Israel community really has its work cut out for itself in trying to fill that void.”

These senior leaders will not be easily replaced, the Democrat said.

“Some of these guys are the most pro-Israel members of Congress in the position for 10 years,” the source said. “They’ve burrowed down in their committees. They were champions. So no other member of Congress will be as good as they were.”

Observers are wondering if J Street’s election night success will translate into increased hostility toward Israel on Capitol Hill.

Opponents of the U.S.-Israel relationship such as Rep. Lois Capps (D., Calif.), Rep. Bill Pascrell (D., N.J.), and Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) won their reelection bids, while a handful of newly elected voices are expected to join the anti-Israel chorus.

They include Tammy Baldwin, anti-Israel advocate Kyrsten Sinema, and Ann McLane Kuster, among others.

Walsh anticipates a “less Israel-friendly Congress.”

Former officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) see things differently, however. AIPAC is the nation’s largest pro-Israel organization.

These observers believe J Street’s power has been inflated and that it remains just as isolated as ever.

“J Street has given up the game of going head to with AIPAC because it’s so dominant,” said Steve Rosen, who served as a senior AIPAC official for more than 20 years.

Rosen and others said that J Street has greatly overestimated its influence in Congress.

It placed bets on uncontested races, wading into only a few tight races. J Street-backed candidates in most cases are even viewed favorably by AIPAC.

“There’s no need for Israel’s real friends to panic,” said Morris Amitay, former executive director of AIPAC. “Most of the incumbents were safe.”

J Street spent under $2 million, a small amount of money that was disbursed throughout many races.

While J Street also threw its support behind “some of the most notorious non-friends of Israel in Congress,” as Amitay put it, the vast majority of Congress counts itself among Israel’s supporters.

J Street “can fool gullible people by claiming to be pro-Israel” but most of its endorsees will wise up, Amitay said.

Observers also said that J Street has undermined its own existence because the group’s mantra has been that “most American Jews don’t vote based on Israel.”

However, following the election, J Street attempted to claim that “hawkish” positions on Israel cost lawmakers such as Walsh their jobs.

“J Street used to be the only lobby in Washington, D.C. insisting that their target audience, American Jews, don’t vote on their issue, Israel,” said one senior official at a pro-Israel organization. “That was weird. Now they’re turning around and claiming that they elected a bunch of politicians on Israel issues. They’ve gone from sad to dishonest.”

While the bipartisan U.S.-Israel alliance appears safe for the time being, sources expressed concern about the Democratic Party’s future course.

Fears were stoked in September when the Democratic Party experienced an anti-Israel convulsion at its convention in Charlotte.

Delegates were caught loudly booing the Jewish state when leaders attempted to reinsert the pro-Israel language.

“What you saw reflected at the convention is where these new Democrats are coming from,” Walsh said. “Their base of support is not as pro-Israel.”

“Anyone who watched that video and the booing has to be stunned,” Rosen said. “That was a symptom if there ever was one of a change. It’s disturbing.”

The video depicts multiple rockets being launched at “Zionist sites” from several areas and contains the official seal of the Al-Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the militant group Palestinian Islamist Jihad.

The video provides further evidence that Palestinian militants have greatly increased their attacks on Israel in recent days.

Violence between Israel and terrorist forces has substantially increased since Saturday, when Palestinians fired an anti-tank missile at an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) jeep that was canvassing Israel’s border area with Gaza.

The IDF said more than 121 rockets have hit Israel since Saturday Nov. 10. The White House has remained silent about the attacks.

“It’s worth noting that Hamas has been previously documented on several instances firing rockets at Israel,” the IDF noted in a statement to the Washington Free Beacon that included video of Hamas militants firing rockets at Israel from homes in Gaza.

“Hamas knows that at best, Obama is all bark and no bite and at worst, is actively hostile to Israel’s right to self defense,” said former Pentagon adviser on Iraq Michael Rubin. “Now that Obama is reelected, Hamas feels it’s in the driver’s seat when it comes to Middle East policy.”

Rubin said Hamas and other terrorists see an opening.

“Terrorists always try to gauge the tipping point, that is how far they can go before they must fear a reprisal,” he said. “Here, they can watch Obama’s inaction toward Syria and conclude there is no tipping point.”

Four Israeli soldiers were wounded in Saturday’s tank attack. This prompted an Israeli military response that killed four Palestinian militants.

“Two days ago, Palestinian terrorists in the Gaza Strip dramatically escalated their attacks against Israel—firing an anti-tank missile at an IDF jeep as well as launching barrages of rockets at Israeli civilians,” the IDF said in a separate statement.

Violence has only increased since then and fears are mounting that a violent tit-for-tat between Israel and its enemies could lead to a full-scale war in a volatile region that is still reeling from a series of bloody revolutions.

Syrian militants joined the battle Sunday when they fired mortars on an Israeli neighborhood and a nearby military outpost.

Israel responded to Palestinian violence in Gaza early Sunday by targeting “a weapon manufacturing facility, two weapon storage facilities and two rocket launching sites in the northern Gaza Strip,” according to the IDF.

This prompted militants to fire dozens more rockets into southern Israel. Several of these rockets struck the town of Sderot, which often faces the brunt of militant attacks due to its proximity to the border.

The violence has forced more than one million Israeli citizens to take cover in bomb shelters, according to The Israel Project.

Sunday’s barrage led the Israeli Air Force to target “a tunnel and a weapons storage facility in northern Gaza, as well as a rocket launching site in southern Gaza,” the IDF announced.

The attacks show that Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile defense system is ill-equipped to defend the state from heavy swarms of rockets. The U.S.-subsidized system has a higher success rate shooting down individual attacks.

Duckworth, who is vying to unseat Rep. Joe Walsh (R., Ill.), has been accused of multiple ethics violations during her time at IDVA. She is currently involved in a lawsuit that claims she wrongly fired whistleblower Christine Butler.

While Duckworth has sought to downplay the lawsuit—claiming the charges “simply aren’t true”—a recently unearthed 2007 email reveals the Democrat may have been aware that she unjustly fired the employee.

“I screwed up in firing [Butler] since she actually is to be put on disciplinary lleave [sic] first,” Duckworth wrote in a May 2007 email to her staff. “Our next step with [the Illinois Department of Central Management Services] is to explain why we need to terminate her employment.”

Central Management Services, the organization Duckworth references, oversees personnel issues among Illinois’ state governmental organizations.

Duckworth appealed to her team to provide her with “documentation” in a “clear, user friendly format to justify my decision to fire her.”

Duckworth’s two-year tenure as director of the IDVA has become a contentious issue in the tight race, with Walsh claiming that her multiple instances of unethical behavior make her unfit to serve in Congress.

Duckworth’s campaign did not return requests for comment.

The lawsuit, filed by Butler and another former staffer, Denise Goins, alleges that Duckworth and her colleague, Patricia Simms, threatened and harassed the two employees for reporting mismanagement and illicit campaign activities at one of the VA sites under Duckworth’s purview.

The suit details multiple instances of unethical and potentially illegal actions.

The staffers claim that their complaints about the facility prompted Simms and Duckworth to threaten them into silence.

Butler was ultimately fired from her post while Simms was briefly fired and then reinstated.

“Butler states in the complaint that, in contrast with Duckworth’s claim that Butler was fired for being ‘insubordinate’ to Simms, it was in fact retaliation for reporting the matters described in the complaint,” Breitbart reported earlier this month. “In other words, fire the whistleblower.”

The 2007 email appears to corroborate that claim that Butler was fired inappropriately.

Duckworth later “proceeded to meet with Goins in a meeting where she told her, ‘If you do your job and keep your mouth shut and concentrate on job duties, you will keep your job,’” according to Breitbart’s article on the lawsuit.

Duckworth has both denied and downplayed the charges.

“First and foremost [the allegations are] not true,” Duckworth stated at an October 9 event when she was confronted about the lawsuit. “You continue to say things repeatedly that are not true.”

Duckworth later insinuated that, although she is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, the charges have little to do with her.

“Let me tell you this, when you are the head of an agency, especially one with a thousand employees, it is common to get sued in the name of the agency, especially when someone is suing the supervisor and then they name you as the head of the agency,” Breitbart quoted her as saying following the debate. “Personally, I think that if this complaint is Mr. Walsh’s best reason for being re-elected to Congress, then I feel very good about my chances.”

Sources inside the Walsh campaign said that they are “not surprised by the” email. They view it as proof that Duckworth has been deceiving voters about her role in the whistleblower case, which is currently working its way through an Illinois court.

“No one should be surprised Duckworth uses the same Chicago machine style politics as [imprisoned former Illinois] Gov. [Rod] Blagojevich did,” said one insider.

The lawsuit is scheduled to be heard on December 17.

The intelligence leaks could jeopardize American efforts to capture or kill those responsible for the raid that killed Ambassador Christopher Stevens, the lawmakers wrote Friday in a letter to the Obama administration and its national security officials.

“We are troubled that administration officials appear to be publicly discussing classified matters, thereby potentially impeding the success of any action that may be taken against those responsible for the September 11, 2012 terrorist attack in Libya,” write the lawmakers, according to a copy of the letter obtained by the Free Beacon.

The lawmakers—among them Sens. Saxby Chambliss (R., Ga.), the committee’s vice chairman, Roy Blunt (R., Mo.), Marco Rubio (R., Fla.), and James Risch (R., Idaho)—are responding to a recent report by the Associated Press that quotes several administration officials anonymously.

The article, which focused on administration efforts to respond to the Libya attack, quoted senior administration officials stating that special operations forces and unmanned drones have been put on standby, ready for a possible strike on those responsible for the Libya attack.

The authors of the congressional letter want to know whether the information is accurate and who leaked it.

“It seems counterintuitive to broadcast our intent to take action as that would certainly give those responsible for this terrorist attack a chance to use evasive measures,” states the letter, which is also addressed to secretary of defense Leon Panetta, CIA director David Petraeus, and national security adviser Thomas Donilon.

“We request that you inform the Senate Intelligence Committee and other relevant intelligence committees whether the information described in the AP article is true and was authorized for disclosure to the press,” the lawmakers write.

They go on to demand that the administration detail “the specific reason for the disclosure” and the “identity of the individual who authorized it.”

The senators recommend that those who leaked the information be identified and referred for “criminal prosecution.”

The most recent national security leaks are part of a disturbing a trend in the Obama administration, the lawmakers write.

The White House came under fire earlier for leaking to the press highly classified details of the raid that killed Osama bin Laden. Critics speculated the Obama administration was revealing details in a bid to score political points by bolstering its national security credentials with voters.

“There are far too many disclosures of classified information appearing in the media, disclosures that not only compromise our intelligence sources and methods but can significantly impact important liaison relationships,” the lawmakers write in their letter to the president.

Given the severity and sensitivity of the leaks, the senators ask that administration officials “be made immediately available” to the committee to answer questions regarding potential fallout.