Trump Says He Wasn’t Briefed on Reported Russian Bounties on US Troops in Afghanistan

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Donald Trump

Ken Bredemeier
VOA NEWS
June 28, 2020

WASHINGTON – U.S. President Donald Trump said Sunday he had never been told about reports that a Russian military intelligence unit was secretly offering bounties to Taliban militants in Afghanistan to kill U.S. soldiers.

Trump scoffed at a New York Times report that U.S. intelligence officials had concluded months ago that the Russian unit, which has been linked to assassination attempts and covert operations in Europe aimed at destabilizing the West, had carried out the mission in Afghanistan last year and that he had been briefed about it in late March.

On Twitter, he said, “Nobody briefed or told me,” Vice President Mike Pence or White House chief of staff Mark Meadows “about the so-called attacks on our troops in Afghanistan by Russians, as reported through an ‘anonymous source’ by the Fake News @nytimes. Everybody is denying it & there have not been many attacks on us.”

Twenty American troops were killed in Afghanistan last year, but it was not known which killings might have been linked to the alleged Russian bounties.

Critics have accused Trump of often being deferential to Russian President Vladimir Putin during his 3 ½-year term in the White House. But Trump tweeted, “Nobody’s been tougher on Russia than the Trump Administration,” contending that Russia “had a field day” under former President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden, Trump’s opponent in the national November presidential election.

The U.S. leader challenged the newspaper to “reveal its ‘anonymous’ source. Bet they can’t do it, this ‘person’ probably does not even exist!”

Both Russia and the Taliban denied the report of the bounties, with Moscow calling them “baseless and anonymous accusations.” The Russian embassy in Washington said the New York Times report had “already led to direct threats” on the lives of employees at Russian embassies in Washington and London.

A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabihullah Mujahid, rejected the report that the insurgents have “any such relations with any intelligence agency” and called the newspaper report an attempt to defame them.

“These kinds of deals with the Russian intelligence agency are baseless — our target killings and assassinations were ongoing in years before, and we did it on our own resources,” he said. “That changed after our deal with the Americans, and their lives are secure, and we don’t attack them.”

Earlier this year, the U.S. and the Taliban signed an “agreement for bringing peace” to Afghanistan after more than 18 years of conflict. The U.S. and NATO allies agreed to withdraw all troops by next year if the militants uphold the deal.

Trump said it had been a “long and hard journey” in Afghanistan, but that, “It’s time after all these years to bring our people back home.”

Despite Trump’s denial of the alleged bounties, one of the top-ranking Republican lawmakers in Congress, Congresswoman Liz Cheney, voiced concerns about the report.

“If reporting about Russian bounties on US forces is true, the White House must explain: 1. Why weren’t the president or vice president briefed?” she said on Twitter.  She asked whether the information was in Trump’s daily presidential briefing.

“Who did know and when? What has been done in response to protect our forces & hold Putin accountable?” said Cheney, the daughter of former U.S. Vice President Richard Cheney.

John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser who now contends in a new book that the president is unfit to run the country, told CNN that Trump’s tweets about the alleged bounties show that he was not concerned about “the security of our forces,” but “whether he was paying attention” to the intelligence report he supposedly was given.

Bomb Kills Afghan Rights Activists in Kabul

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Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission

Ayaz Gul
VOA NEWS
June 27, 2020

ISLAMABAD – Afghan officials said Saturday a roadside bomb blast in Kabul has killed two members of the national human rights monitoring group.

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) said its female donor coordinator, 24-year-old Fatima Khalil, and a driver were traveling to their office in the morning when their vehicle hit an improvised explosive device in an eastern part of the capital.

The commission condemned the attack, saying it was “deeply shaken” by the loss of its employees. “Those responsible should be identified after an investigation and brought to justice for committing this terrible crime,” read a press release.

No one immediately took responsibility for the bombing, the latest in a string of high-profile targeted killings in Kabul in recent weeks that remain unclaimed. They include attacks on highly respected Afghan clerics, civil society representatives and four members, including two lawyers, of the country’s Attorney General’s office, who were gunned down last week.

Militants have previously carried out deadly attacks against members of the constitutionally mandated AIHRC. Afghan officials usually blame Taliban insurgents for the violence.
U.S. ambassador to Kabul Ross Wilson denounced the attack on the AIHRC as unacceptable, calling for end to the ongoing cycle of violence and the “impunity and indignity” of such attacks on Afghans.

“Recently, we and this country’s citizens have grieved the deaths of Afghan security forces, innocent civilians, religious scholars, representatives of Afghanistan’s judicial system, and now those who defend human rights and liberty. These attacks must end,” Wilson tweeted.

The commission has lately stepped up its campaign to seek a “clear role” for women in the proposed peace talks between the Taliban and representatives of a broader Afghan society to monitor respect for human rights.

Shaharzad Akbar, the chairperson of AIHRC, told a special United Nations meeting earlier this week that “only an inclusive process with human rights at its heart can lead to lasting peace and prevent a return to conflict” in Afghanistan.

During their five-year rule in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, the Islamist group, among other controversial policies, barred girls from seeking an education and women from working outdoors.

Afghan and Taliban officials have said their peace dialogue will be held in Qatar, where the insurgent group maintains its office, soon after an ongoing prisoner swap between the two adversaries is concluded.

The prisoner exchange and the intra-Afghan negotiations, which are aimed at discussing a permanent cease-fire and a power-sharing arrangement, are the key provisions of a landmark deal the United States signed with the Taliban in February.

The Afghan government has so far freed nearly 4,000 Taliban prisoners and is in the process of releasing the remaining 1,000. The insurgents have set free more than 600 of the promised 1,000 Afghan security forces in their custody.

The U.S.-Taliban agreement requires all American and coalition troops to withdraw from Afghanistan by July 2021 in return for the Taliban’s counterterrorism guarantees and political reconciliation with rival Afghan groups.
Meanwhile, the Taliban has denied allegations that it had received bounties from Russian intelligence operatives to kill American and coalition forces in Afghanistan.

“The 19-year jihad of the Islamic Emirate (the Taliban) is not indebted to the beneficence of any intelligence organ or foreign country,” said a Taliban statement issued Saturday.

In a story published Friday in The New York Times, unnamed officials were quoted as saying that elements linked to Russia’s military intelligence service had been giving rewards to Taliban fighters to encourage them to launch attacks on international forces.

The Russian Embassy in Washington also rejected the report as “baseless and anonymous accusations,” saying it has led to direct threats to the life of employees at its diplomatic mission in the U.S.

“Stop producing #fakenews that provoke life threats, @nytimes,” the embassy wrote on its official Twitter account.

SIGAR Criticizes Impunity of Corrupt Afghan Govt Officials

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John Sopko

Tolo News: John Sopko, the US Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has strongly criticized a move by the Afghan government to appoint one of the key masterminds behind the collapse of the old Kabul Bank to take charge of a government agency. On June 1st, President Ashraf Ghani in a decree appointed Mahmoud Karzai as acting minister of urban development and land. Click here to read more (external link).

Related

COVID-19: 165 New Cases from 529 Tests

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Tolo News: The Ministry of Public Health on Saturday 165 new positive cases of COVID-19 out of 529 samples tested in the last 24 hours, the lowest number in a day after a month of surge in the cases. The ministry also reported 20 deaths and 388 recoveries in the last 24 hours. The total number of cases is 30,616 and total deaths reported are 703. Click here to read more (external link).

Related

NY Times: Russia Offered Afghan Militants Bounties to Kill US Troops

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Reuters: U.S. intelligence has concluded that the Russian military offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants in Afghanistan to kill American troops and other coalition forces, The New York Times reported Friday. Citing officials briefed on the matter, the Times said the United States determined months ago that a Russian military intelligence unit linked to assassination attempts in Europe had offered rewards for successful attacks last year. Click here to read more (external link).

Maidan Wardak Faces Imminent Threat as Taliban Expands Presence

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Tolo News: Residents in the Afghan province of Maidan Wardak on Friday expressed deep concerns over a dramatic surge in the level of violence in their areas, saying Taliban groups have significantly increased their presence in the area and are frequently engaging in deadly battles with the Afghan security forces. Meanwhile, there are reports that the Taliban took at least seven security force members hostage two days ago from Deh Afghanan, a vicinity near Maidan Shar, the center of Maidan Wardak. Click here to read more (external link).

More Security News

Over 19,000 Known Active COVID-19 Cases in Afghanistan

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Tolo News: The Ministry of Public Health on Friday reported 276 new positive cases of COVID-19 out of 932 samples tested in the last 24 hours. The ministry also reported eight new deaths and 132 recoveries. With this, the total confirmed cases reached 30,451 and deaths reached 638 while there have been 10,306 recoveries countrywide so far. Click here to read more (external link).

COVID-19 Related News

Other Health News

U.S. Adds Afghanistan To List Of Worst Human Traffickers Over Child Sexual Slavery, Child Soldiers

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Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
June 26, 2020

The U.S. State Department has added Afghanistan to a list of nations doing little to stop human trafficking, saying Kabul has failed to properly address child sexual slavery and the recruitment of child soldiers.

In its annual Trafficking In Persons Report released on June 25, the department included Afghanistan in the so-called Tier 3 list of countries that do not meet minimum standards to stop trafficking and are “not making significant efforts” to do so.

During the reporting period, there was “a government policy or pattern of sexual slavery in government compounds (bacha bazi) and recruitment and use of child soldiers,” it said.

The ancient practice of “bacha bazi” — literally, dancing boys — is common practice in Afghanistan among wealthy and powerful men who exploit underage boys as sexual partners.

“Despite local officials’ widespread acknowledgement that many police, especially commanders at remote checkpoints, recruited boys for bacha bazi, some high-level and provincial authorities, including at the Ministry of Interior, categorically denied the existence of bacha bazi among police and would not investigate reports,” according to the State Department.

As a result, “the government has never prosecuted a police officer for bacha bazi.”

Some Steps Taken

Despite the lack of significant efforts, the Afghan government “took some steps to address trafficking, including continuing to identify trafficking victims, prosecuting and convicting some traffickers, including two perpetrators of bacha bazi for kidnapping, and conducting four trainings for provincial antitrafficking officers,” the report said.

The government has also increased the number of Child Protection Units at Afghan National Police recruitment centers, which the report said prevented the recruitment of 357 child soldiers.

However, the Interior and Defense Ministries, as well as the National Directorate of Security “denied that Afghan security forces recruited or used child soldiers, despite multiple cases,” it says.

Meanwhile, some trafficking victims reported that”authorities forced them to have sex in exchange for pursuing their cases or raped them and sent them to detention centers when they tried to report their traffickers,” the State Department says.

And many trafficking victims were arrested, detained, and penalized. Some of them were even punished for “moral crimes.”

Eighteen other countries are included in the report’s Tier 3 list, including Belarus, Iran, Russia, and Turkmenistan.

Inclusion in the lowest category can bring restrictions on U.S. non-humanitarian, non-trade-related assistance, a decision that would be made by the president.

Copyright (c) 2020. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.