Russia Secretly Offered Taliban Bounties to Kill U.S. Troops, New York Times Reports
The saddest part of this revelation is that President Trump was told this in late March and has done nothing.
WASHINGTON – U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan — including targeting U.S. troops — amid the peace talks to end the long-running war there, according to officials briefed on the matter.
The U.S. concluded that the Russian unit, which has been linked to assassination attempts and other covert operations in Europe intended to destabilize the West or take revenge on turncoats, had covertly offered rewards for successful attacks last year.
Islamic militants, or armed criminal elements closely associated with them, are believed to have collected some bounty money, the officials said. Twenty Americans were killed in combat in Afghanistan in 2019, but it was not clear which killings were under suspicion.