[Washington Examiner] Officials within the U.S. intelligence community believe Russian intelligence operatives offered to pay Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces, including U.S. troops, during peace talks to end the nearly two-decade-old conflict in Afghanistan.
Officials told the New York Times that Unit 29155, part of the Russian military intelligence agency widely known as GRU, has been deemed responsible for the bounties. The unit is linked to the March 2018 nerve agent poisoning in Salisbury, England, of Sergei Skripal and his daughter. Skripal was a GRU officer who had worked for British intelligence forces and then defected. In 2016, the unit was linked to an attempted coup in Montenegro.
The officials, who spoke with the outlet on the condition of anonymity, said the intelligence on bounties offered by the GRU is fairly conclusive, based partly on interrogations of captured Afghan militants and criminals, but it is unknown how high in the Russian government knowledge of the situation or approval of it went. |