‘The case wasn’t proved to me’: Top US commander unconvinced by shaky ‘Russian bounty to Taliban’ intel

Intelligence claiming Russia paid Taliban fighters to target US troops in Afghanistan lacked evidence, the top US general in the region has said. His account crushes yet another sensational media report based on anonymous sources.

General Kenneth McKenzie, who oversees military operations in the Middle East and Central Asia as the head of US Central Command, told reporters on Tuesday that unverified reports about Russia having placed “bounties” on American soldiers in Afghanistan have yet to be substantiated.

“The intel case wasn't proved to me – it wasn't proved enough that I'd take it to a court of law – and you know, that's often true in battlefield intelligence,” the senior commander said. According to McKenzie, “there wasn’t enough there” to consider the intelligence credible. 

He described the reports as “worrisome,” but stressed that there was no “causative link” to support the notion that an alleged bounty program had led to US deaths in Afghanistan.

McKenzie’s remarks come a week after an assessment by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) concluded that the intelligence community has reservations about the allegations leveled against Russia. The memo said that the CIA and the National Counterterrorism Center had “medium confidence” in the reports, while the National Security Agency (NSA) and other spy agencies expressed “lower confidence.”

Citing unnamed sources, several US news outlets, headed by NYT, have run stories claiming that Russia offered cash rewards to Taliban militants who carried out attacks against American and coalition forces in Afghanistan. Information regarding the purported “bounty” program was said to have been included in daily intelligence briefings prepared for President Donald Trump. However, the White House has insisted that there was “no consensus” among the intelligence agencies that the reports were reliable, and therefore they were never brought to Trump’s attention.

Responding to the allegations, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov didn’t mince his words, blasting the unverified US media reports as “100 percent bulls**t.”

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