Did Donald Trump confirm existence of a covert CIA programme on Twitter?

US President Donald Trump speaks at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia - AFP or licensors
US President Donald Trump speaks at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia - AFP or licensors

Donald Trump has frequently railed against those leaking information, especially intelligence material, to the media.

Now, however, it appears the president himself has inadvertently confirmed the existence of a covert CIA programme.

Mr Trump issued a series of tweets attacking the Washington Post on Monday evening, including one that referred to a story about the termination of US efforts to aid rebels fighting to oust Syria's President Bashar Assad.  

"The Amazon Washington Post fabricated the facts on my ending massive, dangerous, and wasteful payments to Syrian rebels fighting Assad," Mr Trump said, days after the newspaper had claimed  the president was axing a programme established by Barack Obama in 2013

It was a move long sought for by Russia, which saw the anti-Assad programme as an assault on its interests. 

Although the programme had been widely reported, its existence was understood to be officially still classified. 

"If the media reports are true, the President of the United States just confirmed a CIA covert action program. On Twitter," said Ned Price, a former CIA employee. 

 US officials told the newspaper in a story published July 19 that ending the secret programme was related to Mr Trump's concerns about re-establishing a working relationship with Russia.

Mr Trump is reported to have made the decision nearly a month ago, after an Oval Office meeting with national security adviser H.R. McMaster and CIA Director Mike Pompeo.

Russia long saw the anti-Assad programme as an assault on its interests. Ending the plan, in addition to appeasing Russian President Vladimir Putin, is also an acknowledgment of the US's limited ability to unseat the Syrian president.

Until Moscow intervened militarily on behalf of the Syrian government in 2015, the US-backed rebels had been making major gains.