U.S. intel officials have been alleging that according to their sources, the Russian government offered a bounty to Taliban extremists if they would kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Just Security discussed these allegations with some former Trump Administration officials, trying to gleam some insight into what President Donald Trump and his officials knew about Russian government activity in Afghanistan.
“Why would the Russian government think it could get away with paying bounties to the Taliban to kill American soldiers?,” Just Security’s Ryan Goodman writes. “One answer to that question may be the extraordinary response that Moscow received when the Trump Administration learned of a precursor to the bounty operation. From mid-2017 and into 2018, Pentagon officials became increasingly confident in intelligence reports that the Kremlin was arming the Taliban, which posed a significant threat to American and coalition forces on the ground in Afghanistan.”
President Donald Trump and his administration have had much better relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin than President Barack Obama did. And according to Goodman, “Trump directed the CIA to share intelligence information on counterterrorism with the Kremlin despite no discernible reward, former intelligence officials who served in the Trump Administration told Just Security.” Continue reading.