Russia paid money to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan?
Russia has dismissed reports that it had given money to Taliban-backed extremists to kill US troops in Afghanistan.
US officials were quoted by the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal newspaper as reporting that the Russian military intelligence unit had paid for it last year.
The same unit was accused of attempting to kill in Europe.
The Russian Embassy in the United States has said that these claims will pose a threat to its diplomats.
At the same time, the Taliban has also rejected this charge and said that he had not done any such deal with the Russian intelligence agency.
This report comes at a time when the United States is trying for a peace deal after a 19-year war in Afghanistan.
The New York Times quoted an unnamed official as saying that intelligence agencies in the United States had discovered months earlier that a unit of Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency had launched a covert attack on coalition forces to destabilize its opponents. Gave money
The newspaper said that Islamic extremists or armed criminal elements associated with him collected some money.
US President Donald Trump said, he did not know about it.
According to the Times, President Donald Trump was told about this in March itself. However, President Trump tweeted on Sunday that he had not been told anything about it.
Neither he nor Vice President Mike Pence were told “about the so-called attack on our Russian security forces in Afghanistan”, he tweeted.
At the same time, the Russian Embassy in America repeatedly accused the United States of spreading fake news of the newspaper, saying several tweets.
In 2019, 20 US soldiers died in Afghanistan, but the New York Times says that it is not yet clear which deaths are under suspicion.
Officials whose statements in the New York Times say that the White House National Security Council had considered how to respond to it and included measures such as increasing sanctions on Russia.
Russia’s GRU agency was accused in March 2018 of trying to kill Russia’s double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia through a nerve agent in Salisbury, England.
Taliban rejected
A Taliban spokesman has called these allegations baseless.
Zabihullah Mujahid from the New York Times said, “We used to try to kill or target someone many years ago and we used to do that with our resources.”
He said that the Taliban stopped attacks on US and NATO forces after February because it was then agreed to lift the ban and remove the forces.
In return, the Taliban said that it would not allow extremist groups to carry out activities from their area.
