The US commander in Afghanistan, General John Allen, is under investigation for "inappropriate" emails to a woman linked to the sex scandal involving former CIA director David Petraeus, a defence official has said.
The revelation on Tuesday represented yet another stunning turn in a widening scandal that has jolted Washington only days after the re-election of President Barack Obama, with legislators vowing to get to the bottom of the case.
The Pentagon official told reporters the FBI had uncovered a trove of 30,000 pages of correspondence, mostly emails, between Allen and Jill Kelley, a key figure in the scandal that brought down the CIA chief.
Petraeus, a former four-star general who had previously led the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, resigned abruptly last week over an extramarital affair with his biographer Paula Broadwell.
Kelley, of Tampa, Florida, had alerted the FBI to receiving threatening emails earlier this year that were eventually traced to Broadwell. The FBI then found emails between Broadwell and Petraeus that revealed their affair.
The senior US defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters travelling with Defence Secretary Leon Panetta there was a "distinct possibility" the Allen emails were connected to the Petraeus investigation.
"The allegations involve inappropriate communications" between Allen and Kelley, the official said.
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