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The recovery of giant amounts of U.S. money from a Taliban outpost in Afghanistan helped spread to U.S. officials. It is idea that at least one death of American troops is the result of bonuses.
By Eric Schmitt, Adam Goldman and Nicholas Fandos
WASHINGTON (AP) – U.S. intelligence officials and special operations forces in Afghanistan alerted their superiors as early as January of an alleged plot across Russia to pay bonuses to the Taliban to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan, according to officials briefed on the issue. They believed that at least one death of U.S. troops was the result of bonuses, two of the officials said.
The crucial data that led spies and commandos to get the bonuses included the recovery of a giant amount of American money in a raid on a Taliban outpost that aroused suspicion. Interrogations of captured activists and criminals have played a central role in making the intelligence network confident in its assessment that the Russians filed and paid bonuses in 2019, another official said.
Based on this information, army and intelligence officers have tested those who suffered fighting across the United States and other coalitions over the more than 18 months to find out if any of them were plotted. Four Americans were killed in action in early 2020, but the Taliban have not attacked U.S. positions since a February agreement to end the long war in Afghanistan.
The main points were added to the symbol of the assessment of classified information, which the New York Times said had been discussed Friday within the Trump administration since at least March, and emerged when the White House faced a growing number of complaints Sunday about its obvious failure. to authorize a reaction to Russia.
Trump defended himself by denying the Times’s report that he had been informed of the information, and a rebuttal came from the White House a day earlier. But more sensitive Congressional Democrats and some Republicans have demanded a reaction to Russia that officials say the administration has not yet authorized.
The president “must denounce and manage this, and end Russia’s shadow war,” said Rep. Adam Kinzinger, an Illinois Republican and member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, on Twitter.
Appearing on ABC’s “This Week, ” President Nancy Pelosi said she had not been informed of the data assessment and had requested an immediate report from Congress. She accused Trump of not “ignoring” the accusations against Russia.
“Russia has never recovered from the humiliation it suffered in Afghanistan, and now it is attacking our troops,” he said of the Soviet Union’s Bloody War in the 1980s. “It’s absolutely outrageous. You’d think that as soon as the president found out, he’d need to know more to deny that he knows anything.”
Spokesmen for the C.I.A., the director of national intelligence and the Pentagon declined to comment on the new findings. A Spokesman for the National Security Council, John L. Ullyot, said on a Sunday night: “The veracity of the underlying accusations is still being assessed.”
Trump said Sunday night on Twitter that “Intel just informed me that they didn’t find this credible data and didn’t report it to me or @VP.” A senior management official presented a similar explanation, saying that Trump had not been informed because intelligence agencies had not reached any consensus on locations.
But some other officials said there was a broad consensus that the evaluation of the data was accurate, with some complexities, because other facets of the data, such as the addition of interrogations and surveillance knowledge, led to differences between agencies in the degree of acceptance as true with being given to each type.
Although White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said Saturday that Trump had not been briefed on the intelligence report, a U.S. official told The Times that the report had been informed to the highest degree of the White House. Another said he included in the president’s Daily Brief, a collection of foreign policy and national security data compiled for Trump to read.
McEnany did not question the Times’ reports on the lifestyles of the intelligence assessment, an inter-agency board of the National Security Council on the matter last March and that of the White House. Several other news agencies also reported on the evaluation later, and the Washington Post first reported Sunday that bonuses would have resulted in the death of at least one U.S. service member.
Officials briefed on the matter said the evaluation had been treated as a well-kept secret, but that the administration had expanded its reports on the factor over the following week, adding information on the matter with the British government, whose forces were among those allegedly attacked.
Congressional Republicans have asked Trump’s management for more information about what happened and how the White House planned to respond.
Wyoming’s representative Liz Cheney, Republican of the 3rd House, said Sunday in an article on Twitter: “If the report on Russian bonuses to US forces is true, the White House will have to explain: 1. Why did the president or vice president report? Were the data in the BPA? 2. Who knew and when? 3. What was done in reaction to protect our forces and hold Putin accountable?
Several Republicans retwented Ms. Cheney’s message. Rep. Daniel Crenshaw, a Texas Republican and former navy sealating member, amplified his message by tweeting: “We want answers.”
In response to questions, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, said he has long warned that he opposed Russian paintings to undermine U.S. interests in the Middle East and Southwest Asia and noted that he drafted an amendment last year rebuking Trump. . withdrawal of forces from Syria and Afghanistan.
“The United States will have to prioritize defense resources, maintain a sufficient regional military presence, and continue to impose serious consequences on those who threaten us and our allies, such as our movements in Syria and Afghanistan opposed to Daesh, the Taliban, and the Russian mercenary. forces that threatened our partners, ” said McConnell.
Attendees from other high-ranking Republicans refused to comment or responded to requests for comment Sunday, adding rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, the House’s most sensible Republican; Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee; and Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
In addition to saying that he never “reported or reported” the intelligence report, a wording that went beyond the White House’s refusal to any formal briefing, Trump also questioned the credibility of the assessment, which his subordinates had not done.
Specifically, he described the intelligence report as dealing with “alleged attacks on our troops in Afghanistan through Russians”; The report describes bonuses paid to Taliban militants through Russian army intelligence agents, direct attacks. Trump also warned that progress could simply be a “deception” and questioned whether the resources of the Times existed, government officials who spoke under anonymity.
Then Trump took a turn to attack former President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who on Saturday criticized the president for failing to punish Russia for granting bonuses to the Taliban, as well as Biden’s son, Hunter, who is targeted by unfounded accusations. who helped a Ukrainian energy company win Obama’s management when his father was vice president.
“No one has been more difficult with Russia than the Trump administration,” Trump tweeted. “With the corrupt Joe Biden and Obama, Russia had a day on the ground, taking vital parts of Ukraine – where’s Hunter?”
U.S. officials said the Russian plot to pay bonuses to Taliban fighters evolved in recent months after intelligence analysts and special operations forces amassed key evidence.
One official said the seizure of a giant amount of U.S. cash at a Taliban site had attracted “everyone’s attention” in Afghanistan. It is not transparent when the cash was recovered.
Two officials said the data on bounty hunting was “well known” among the intelligence network in Afghanistan, and added that the CIA and other senior officials there, such as army commandos hunting the Taliban. Data disseminated in intelligence reports and highlighted in some of them.
The assessment compiled and sent to the chain of command to senior military and intelligence officials eventually landed at the highest levels of the White House. The March Security Council assembly took a position at a sensitive time, as the coronavirus pandemic became a crisis and caused closures across the country.
A former U.S. official said national security adviser Robert C.O’Brien and president’s staff leader Mark Meadows were concerned about any resolution to inform Trump about Russia’s activities, as the intelligence analyst reported to the president. CIA Director Gina Haspel may also have intervened, the former official said.
Ms. McEnany quoted these three senior officials in her statement that the president had not been informed.
National security officials have been tracking Russia’s relations with the Taliban for years and have decided that Moscow has provided money and clothing to the Taliban’s leading leaders and regional leaders.
While Russia has infrequently cooperated with the United States and seemed interested in Afghan stability, it turns out to oppose its own national interest if the result is negative for U.S. national interests, said a former senior Trump White House official who spoke. to speak under anonymity to discuss sensitive safety assessments.
Revenge is also a thing in Russia for the Taliban, the official said. Russia was willing to target the game box after a bloody 2018 confrontation in Syria, when a major US counterattack killed many Syrian forces as well as Officially subsidized Russian mercenaries across the Kremlin.
“They are holding a score sheet and they punish us for this incident,” the official said.
Russia and the Taliban have denied U.S. intelligence.
Pelosi said that if the president was in fact not informed, then the country is concerned that its management is afraid to share data about Russia with him.
Pelosi said the episode underlined Trump’s complacent stance on Russia and that, with him, “all paths lead to Putin.”
“This is as serious as possible and yet the president will not face the Russians on this point, he denies having been informed,” he said. “Whether it is or not, your administration knows, and some of our allies who paint with us in Afghanistan have been informed and settled for this report.”
John R. Bolton, Trump’s former national security officer, said in “this week” that he was unansumed by the intelligence assessment, but questioned Trump’s reaction on Twitter.
“What would motivate the president to do that, because it sounds bad if the Russians pay to kill Americans and we don’t do anything about it?” Mr Bolton said. “The presidential reaction is to say, “It’s not my responsibility. Nobody told me. “And so in the face of any allegation that did not act effectively.”
Bolton said that summed up Trump’s decision-making on national security issues. “It just has no relation to the truth you face.”
The reports were through Julian E. Barnes, Charlie Savage, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Michael Schwirtz and Michael D. Shear.
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