Russia offered Taliban-linked militants bounties for killing American troops in Afghanistan
- Although President Donald Trump was briefed on the intelligence finding, the White House has yet to authorize any steps against Russia.
American intelligence officials have concluded that Russia secretly paid bounties to Taliban-linked militants in Afghanistan to kill American troops.
According to New York Times, several months ago, the US concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit linked to assassination attempts in Europe, offered rewards for successful attacks last year.
In 2019, 20 Americans were killed in combat, though it was not clear which deaths were under suspicion.
According to the officials, the money was collected by Islamist militants. The officials however, did not describe as how targets were picked or how money changed hands.
Although President Donald Trump was briefed on the intelligence finding, the White House has yet to authorize any steps against Russia in response to the bounties.
Any involvement with the Taliban that resulted in the deaths of American troops would also be a huge escalation of Russia’s so-called hybrid war against the United States, New York Times said.
A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahid dismissed the news, saying that the findings was an attempt to defame them. "These kinds of deals with the Russian intelligence agency are baseless — our target killings and assassinations were ongoing in years before, and we did it on our own resources,” he said.
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