More evidence is emerging daily of the Russian program to place bounties on U.S. (and U.K.) soldiers in Afghanistan. An Afghan middle man, Rahmatullah Azizi, has been identified U.S. and Afghan intelligence sources as the conduit between Russian intelligence operators and Taliban fighters in the distribution of the bounties as a reward for killing U.S. soldiers, as reported in the New York Times:
"As security agencies connected the dots of the bounty scheme and narrowed in on him, they carried out sweeping raids to arrest dozens of his relatives and associates about six months ago, but discovered that Mr. Azizi had sneaked out of Afghanistan and was likely back in Russia. What they did find in one of his homes, in Kabul, was about half a million dollars in cash.Trump's attacks on his own intelligence community over the years are reaping what they sowed: instead of standing silent and absorbing his dishonest attacks, they're now exposing his treachery toward the U.S. troops he's sworn to protect. They're putting their country over silent loyalty to a corrupt President whose loyalties are to himself and those that promise him more power and riches.
American and Afghan officials have maintained for years that Russia was running clandestine operations to undermine the U.S. mission in Afghanistan and aid the Taliban.
But U.S. officials only recently concluded that a Russian spy agency was paying bounties for killing coalition troops, including Americans, which the Kremlin and the Taliban have denied. [ed. - as has Kremlin asset Trump]
According to officials briefed on the matter, U.S. intelligence officials believe the program is run by Unit 29155, an arm of the Russian military intelligence agency known as the G.R.U. that has carried out assassinations and other operations overseas." (our emphasis)
(photo: The body of Spec. Michael Nance is returned to U.S. soil from Afghanistan in July, 2019. Steve Ruark / AP)
