Sorry for possibly sounding pedantic and overly serious about what was likely a joke post, but if we read the article further, they actually refer to "ASCII expressions designed to represent faces and emotions, commonly used on internet message boards to denote a particular reaction", with examples like these:

¢‿¢
©¿© o
ª{•̃̾_•̃̾}ª
¬_¬
¯＼(º_o)/¯
¯\(º o)/¯
¯\(⊙︿⊙)/¯
¯\_(ツ)/¯
°ω°
°Д°
°‿‿°
°ﺑ°
´ ▽ ` )ﾉ
¿ⓧⓧﮌ
Ò,ó
ó‿ó
ô⌐ô
ôヮô
ŎםŎ
ŏﺡó

So, not actually images per se, and not even necessarily "japanese". This is just the CIA's stash of ASCII dongers thing we already knew from several months ago, badly worded by Wikileaks. And the article is actually from March 2017, so scratch the "months old" part: this is over a year old and barely related to anime in any way, if at all.

Who knows why the CIA would have these, though, but I would be wiser than to consider theories about it from any politically charged source like Breibart.

Are you telling me that the CIA has a smug anime girl folder