The editor in chief of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, has strongly denied allegations by the US government that he has blood on his hands due to the some 90,000 leaked documents, many of them classified, which have been posted on the site.

Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff had accused Assange of putting in danger the lives of several thousand US troops still operating on the ground in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“Mr Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family,” said Mullen Thursday in the strongest categorisation of the Web site's actions by a US government official thus far.

Assange contended Friday that there was no evidence to support such claims.

“One must consider why the Pentagon is focusing on the hypothetical blood that it says might be on our hands – although there is no evidence of that – compared to the 20,000 lives that have been lost in Afghanistan that are documented and exposed by our material,” Assange told the BBC’s Newshour programme, adding that the Web site would not be silenced.

Wikileaks is a Web site, which allows whistleblowers to come forward and hand over classified documents such as battlefield reports and strategy memos that reveal the other side of a war, which has been presented by the US government and media through a narrow lens. In-line with journalistic practise, such sources are not revealed.

Among the revelations made by the Web site is the infamous video shot from a US helicopter, which shows suspected militants being gunned down in Iraq. In the video, a group of men alleged to be militants are shot at for over an hour until most of them are dead or wounded, when a rescue van arrives, unarmed men are shot down as well.

Later examination revealed the van was carrying children and that two of the men killed were journalists holding cameras and not weapons. The video revealed the ambiguity and chaos inherent to a war zone, but also put in doubt the US military’s insistence that collateral damage is avoided whenever possible.

The series of document leaks published by the Web site, which have now been dubbed The Afghan War Diaries, also reveal that civilian casualties are frequently not recorded and that there is a concern in the US military that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency may be supplying weapons to the Taliban in Afghanistan, even as the US plies Pakistan with military aid.

The US government has begun a damage control campaign, framing the document leaks as an issue of national security and one soldier has already been detained for further investigation by the Pentagon.

It is alleged that US Army Pfc Bradley Manning gave the helicopter attack video to Wikileaks and he has been moved from Kuwait to Quantico Marine Base in Virginia for detention before facing a military tribunal.