WASHINGTON: In a shift of tactics that has alarmed American officials, the antisecrecy organization WikiLeaks has published on the Web nearly 134,000 leaked diplomatic cables in recent days, more than six times the total disclosed publicly since the posting of the leaked state department documents began last year in November.

A sampling of the documents showed that the newly published cables included the names of some people who had spoken confidentially to American diplomats and whose identities were marked in the cables with the warning "strictly protect".

However, WikiLeaks has denied this.

State department officials and human rights activists have been concerned that such diplomatic sources, including activists, journalists and academics in authoritarian countries, could face reprisals, including dismissal from their jobs, prosecution or violence. Since late 2010, the New York Times and several other news organizations have had access to more than 250,000 state department cables originally obtained by Wiki-Leaks, citing them in news articles and publishing a relatively small number of cables deemed newsworthy. But the Times and other publications that had access to the documents removed the names of people judged vulnerable to retaliation.

WikiLeaks published some cables on its own Web site, but until the latest release, the group had also provided versions of the cables that had been edited to protect the low-level diplomatic sources.

Government officials and journalists were poring over the newly released cables to assess whether people named might face repercussions. A quick sampling found at least one cable posted, from the American embassy in Australia, had a name removed, but several others left in the identities of people flagged for protection. Among those named were a United Nations official in West Africa and a foreign human rights activist working in Cambodia. They had spoken candidly to American Embassy officials on the understanding that they would not be publicly identified.

The disclosures take place as a federal grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, continues to hear evidence in a criminal investigation of Wiki-Leaks for disclosing classified information. WikiLeaks said that the acceleration in disclosing cables was "in accordance with its commitment to maximizing impact and making information available to all". State department spokesman, Michael A Hammer, said the department would not comment on the authenticity of the documents. He said the US "strongly condemns illegal disclosure of classified information".