Spies and Commandos Warned Months Ago of Russian Bounties on U.S. Troops – The New York Times

WASHINGTON — United States intelligence officers and Special Operations forces in Afghanistan alerted their superiors as early as January to a suspected Russian quandary to pay bounties to the Taliban to abolish American troops in Afghanistan, basically based totally on officers briefed on the matter. They believed no lower than one U.S. troop loss of life become the result of the bounties, two of the officers said.

The crucial files that led the spies and commandos to focal point on the bounties integrated the restoration of a huge quantity of American cash from a raid on a Taliban outpost that introduced on suspicions. Interrogations of captured militants and criminals performed a central role in making the intelligence community assured in its overview that the Russians had provided and paid bounties in 2019, one more legit has said.

Armed with this files, armed forces and intelligence officers were reviewing American and masses of coalition fight casualties over the previous 18 months to search out out whether or no longer any were victims of the quandary. Four Individuals were killed in fight in early 2020, but the Taliban bear no longer attacked American positions since a February agreement to halt the long-running war in Afghanistan.

The info added to the checklist of the categorized intelligence overview, which The Unique York Instances reported Friday has been under discussion inside the Trump administration since no lower than March, and emerged because the White Dwelling confronted a growing chorus of criticism on Sunday over its apparent failure to authorize a response to Russia.

Mr. Trump defended himself by denying the Instances document that he had been briefed on the intelligence, expanding on a identical White Dwelling rebuttal a day earlier. But main congressional Democrats and some Republicans demanded a response to Russia that, basically based totally on officers, the administration has but to authorize.

The president “wishes to straight account for and tackle this, and stop Russia’s shadow war,” Representative Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois and a member of the Dwelling Foreign Affairs Committee, wrote on Twitter.

Performing on the ABC program “This Week,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she had no longer been briefed on the intelligence overview and had requested for an instantaneous document to Congress. She accused Mr. Trump of wanting “to ignore” any charges against Russia.

“Russia has by no methodology gotten over the humiliation they suffered in Afghanistan, and now they’re taking it out on us, our troops,” she said of the Soviet Union’s bloody war there within the 1980s. “Right here’s entirely base. It’s possible you’ll perhaps perchance perhaps command about that the minute the president heard of it, he would must know extra in its build of denying that he knew the leisure.”

Spokespeople for the C.I.A., the director of nationwide intelligence and the Pentagon declined to touch upon the unusual findings. A Nationwide Security Council spokesman, John L. Ullyot, said in an announcement on Sunday night, “The veracity of the underlying allegations continues to be evaluated.”

Mr. Trump said Sunday night on Twitter that “Intel appropriate reported to me that they didn’t procure this files credible, and attributable to this truth didn’t document it to me or @VP.” One senior administration legit provided a identical explanation, announcing that Mr. Trump become no longer briefed for the reason that intelligence companies had attain to no consensus on the findings.

But one more legit said there become immense agreement that the intelligence overview become excellent, with some complexities because masses of aspects of the intelligence — alongside with interrogations and surveillance files — resulted in some variations among companies in how great self assurance to position in each and each variety.

Though the White Dwelling press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, claimed on Saturday that Mr. Trump had no longer been briefed referring to the intelligence document, one American legit had suggested The Instances that the document become briefed to the best stages of the White Dwelling. One other said it become integrated within the President’s Day-to-day Transient, a compendium of international coverage and nationwide security intelligence compiled for Mr. Trump to be taught.

Ms. McEnany didn’t enlighten The Instances’s reporting on the existence of the intelligence overview, a Nationwide Security Council interagency assembly about it in leisurely March and the White Dwelling’s pronounce of being inactive. Multiple masses of files organizations also therefore reported on the overview, and The Washington Post first reported on Sunday that the bounties were believed to bear resulted within the loss of life of no lower than one American provider member.

The officers briefed on the matter said that the overview had been handled as a carefully held secret but that the administration expanded briefings about it over the last week — alongside with sharing info about it with the British authorities, whose forces were among these said to were centered.

Republicans in Congress demanded extra files from the Trump administration about what took quandary and how the White Dwelling planned to acknowledge.

Representative Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the third-ranking Dwelling Republican, said in a Twitter submit on Sunday: “If reporting about Russian bounties on U.S. forces is real, the White Dwelling must hide: 1. Why weren’t the president or vice chairman briefed? Was as soon as the info within the PDB? 2. Who did know and when? 3. What has been done basically based totally on guard our forces & have interaction Putin responsible?”

Multiple Republicans retweeted Ms. Cheney’s submit. Representative Daniel Crenshaw, Republican of Texas and a musty member of the Navy SEALs, amplified her message, tweeting, “We would like answers.”

In an announcement basically based totally on questions, Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, said he had long warned about Russia’s work to undermine American interests within the Center East and southwest Asia and eminent that he wrote an amendment last twelve months rebuking Mr. Trump’s withdrawal of forces from Syria and Afghanistan.

“The United States wishes to prioritize defense sources, have interaction a sufficient regional armed forces presence and continue to impose serious penalties on americans that threaten us and our allies — esteem our strikes in Syria and Afghanistan against ISIS, the Taliban and Russian mercenary forces that threatened our partners,” Mr. McConnell said.

Aides for varied top Republicans either declined to comment or didn’t reply to requests for touch upon Sunday, alongside with Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the head Dwelling Republican; Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, the acting chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee; and Senator Jim Risch of Idaho, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Members of the family Committee.

Besides announcing he become by no methodology “briefed or suggested” referring to the intelligence document — a components that went previous the White Dwelling denial of any formal briefing — Mr. Trump also solid doubt on the overview’s credibility, which statements from his subordinates had no longer.

Specifically, he described the intelligence document as being about “so-referred to as assaults on our troops in Afghanistan by Russians”; the document described bounties paid to Taliban militants by Russian armed forces intelligence officers, no longer divulge assaults. Mr. Trump also urged that the traits is most frequently a “hoax” and puzzled whether or no longer The Instances’s sources — authorities officers who spoke on the condition of anonymity — existed.

Mr. Trump then pivoted to attack musty Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who criticized the president on Saturday for failing to punish Russia for providing bounties to the Taliban, to boot to Mr. Biden’s son, Hunter, who is the target of unsubstantiated claims that he helped a Ukrainian energy agency curry prefer with the Obama administration when his father become vice chairman.

“No person’s been more challenging on Russia than the Trump Administration,” Mr. Trump tweeted. “With Corrupt Joe Biden & Obama, Russia had a area day, taking on indispensable parts of Ukraine — The build’s Hunter?”

American officers said the Russian quandary to pay bounties to Taliban combatants came into focal point over the previous several months after intelligence analysts and Special Operations forces put collectively key objects of proof.

One legit said the seizure of a huge quantity of American cash at one Taliban quandary bought “all americans’s consideration” in Afghanistan. It become no longer decided when the cash become recovered.

Two officers said the info referring to the bounty hunting become “smartly known” among the many intelligence community in Afghanistan, alongside with the C.I.A.’s chief of contrivance and masses of top officers there, esteem the armed forces commandos hunting the Taliban. The idea become dispensed in intelligence stories and highlighted in some of them.

The overview become compiled and sent up the chain of declare to senior armed forces and intelligence officers, lastly touchdown at the best stages of the White Dwelling. The Security Council assembly in March came at a peaceable time, because the coronavirus pandemic become changing proper into a crisis and prompting shutdowns around the nation.

A musty American legit said the nationwide security adviser, Robert C. O’Brien, and the president’s chief of workers, Sign Meadows, would were fascinated by any decision to short Mr. Trump on Russia’s activities, as would bear the intelligence analyst who briefs the president.. The director of the C.I.A., Gina Haspel, also can bear also weighed in, the musty legit said.

Ms. McEnany cited these three senior officers in her assertion announcing the president had no longer been briefed.

Nationwide security officers bear tracked Russia’s relationship with the Taliban for years and positive that Moscow has provided financial and self-discipline cloth pink meat as much as senior and regional Taliban leaders.

While Russia has at instances cooperated with america and looked attracted to Afghan stability, it most frequently appears to be like to work at crosscurrents with its possess nationwide ardour if the result is anguish to American nationwide interests, said a musty senior Trump White Dwelling legit, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to focus on sensitive security assessments.

Revenge is also a component in Russia’s pink meat up for the Taliban, the legit said. Russia has been involved to even the scales after a bloody difference in 2018 in Syria, when a wide U.S. counterattack killed hundreds of Syrian forces alongside with Russian mercenaries nominally supported by the Kremlin.

“They’re conserving a rating sheet, and they must punish us for that incident,” the legit said.

Both Russia and the Taliban bear denied the American intelligence overview.

Ms. Pelosi said that if the president had no longer, in fact, been briefed, then the nation also can peaceable worry that his administration become afraid to fragment with him files referring to Russia.

Ms. Pelosi said that the episode underscored Mr. Trump’s accommodating stance in direction of Russia and that with him, “all roads result in Putin.”

“Right here’s as grisly because it will get, and but the president is no longer any longer going to confront the Russians on this rating, denies being briefed,” she said. “Whether he’s or no longer, his administration knows, and some of our allies who work with us in Afghanistan were briefed and accept this document.”

John R. Bolton, Mr. Trump’s musty nationwide security adviser, said on “This Week” that he become no longer unsleeping of the intelligence overview, but he puzzled Mr. Trump’s response on Twitter.

“What would motivate the president to get hold of that, because it looks grisly if Russians are paying to abolish Individuals and we’re no longer doing the leisure about it?” Mr. Bolton said. “The presidential response is to claim: ‘It’s no longer my responsibility. No person suggested me about it.’ And attributable to this truth to duck any complaints that he hasn’t acted effectively.”

Mr. Bolton said this summed up Mr. Trump’s decision-making on nationwide security points. “It’s appropriate unconnected to the actual fact he’s going by means of.”

Reporting become contributed by Julian E. Barnes, Charlie Savage, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, Michael Schwirtz and Michael D. Shear.