WASHINGTON — United States intelligence officers and Particular Operations forces in Afghanistan alerted their superiors as early as January to a s
WASHINGTON — United States intelligence officers and Particular Operations forces in Afghanistan alerted their superiors as early as January to a suspected Russian plot to pay bounties to the Taliban to kill American troops in Afghanistan, in response to officers briefed on the matter.
The essential data that led the spies and commandos to concentrate on the bounties included the restoration of a considerable amount of American money from a raid on a Taliban outpost that prompted suspicions. Interrogations of captured militants and criminals performed a central function in making the intelligence neighborhood assured in its evaluation that the Russians had supplied and paid bounties in 2019, one other official has mentioned.
Armed with this data, navy and intelligence officers have been reviewing American and different coalition fight casualties since early final 12 months to find out whether or not any have been victims of the plot. 4 People have been killed in fight in early 2020, however the Taliban haven’t attacked American positions since a February settlement to finish the long-running struggle in Afghanistan.
The rising particulars added to the image of the categorised intelligence evaluation, which The New York Occasions reported on Friday was briefed to President Trump and mentioned by the White Home’s Nationwide Safety Council at an interagency assembly in late March. The Trump administration had but to behave in opposition to the Russians, the officers mentioned.
Mr. Trump defended himself on Sunday by denying that he had been briefed on the intelligence, increasing on the same White Home rebuttal a day earlier, as main congressional Democrats and even some Republicans demanded a response to Russia that the administration had but to authorize.
The president “wants to instantly expose and deal with this, and cease Russia’s shadow struggle,” Consultant Adam Kinzinger, Republican of Illinois on the Home Overseas Affairs Committee, wrote on Twitter.
Showing on the ABC program “This Week,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi mentioned that she had not been briefed on the intelligence evaluation and had requested for an instantaneous report back to Congress. She accused Mr. Trump of wanting “to disregard” any fees in opposition to Russia.
“Russia has by no means gotten over the humiliation they suffered in Afghanistan, and now they’re taking it out on us, our troops,” she mentioned of the Soviet Union’s bloody struggle there within the 1980s. “That is completely outrageous. You’ll suppose that the minute the president heard of it, he would need to know extra as an alternative of denying that he knew something.”
Spokespeople for the C.I.A., the director of nationwide intelligence and the Pentagon declined to touch upon the brand new findings. A Nationwide Safety Council spokesman didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Although the White Home press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, claimed on Saturday that Mr. Trump had not been briefed in regards to the intelligence report, one American official had advised The Occasions that the report was briefed to the best ranges of the White Home. One other mentioned it was included within the President’s Each day Temporary, a compendium of international coverage and nationwide safety intelligence compiled for Mr. Trump to learn.
Ms. McEnany didn’t problem The Occasions’s reporting on the existence of the intelligence evaluation, the Nationwide Safety Council assembly and the White Home’s inaction. A number of different information organizations additionally subsequently reported on the evaluation.
The officers briefed on the matter mentioned the evaluation had been handled as a intently held secret however that the administration expanded briefings about it over the past week — together with sharing details about it with the British authorities, whose forces have been amongst these mentioned to have been focused.
Republicans in Congress demanded extra data from the Trump administration about what occurred and the way the White Home deliberate to reply.
Consultant Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the third-ranking Home Republican, mentioned in a Twitter message on Sunday: “If reporting about Russian bounties on U.S. forces is true, the White Home should clarify: 1. Why weren’t the president or vice chairman briefed? Was the information within the PDB? 2. Who did know and when? 3. What has been completed in response to guard our forces & maintain Putin accountable?”
A number of Republicans retweeted Ms. Cheney’s publish. Consultant Daniel Crenshaw, Republican of Texas and a former Navy SEAL, amplified her message, tweeting, “We’d like solutions.”
On CNN, Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, mentioned that the reported Russian actions “can be in line with the Russian apply over the previous few years of doing its greatest secretly to attempt to undermine Western authorities, together with america.”
Along with saying he was by no means “briefed or advised” in regards to the intelligence report — a formulation that went past the White Home denial of any formal briefing — Mr. Trump additionally forged doubt on the evaluation’s credibility, which statements from his subordinates had not.
Particularly, he described the intelligence report as being about “so-called assaults on our troops in Afghanistan by Russians”; the report described bounties paid to Taliban militants by Russian navy intelligence officers, not direct assaults. Mr. Trump additionally recommended that the developments might be a “hoax” and questioned whether or not The Occasions’s sources — authorities officers who spoke on situation of anonymity — existed.
Mr. Trump then pivoted to assault former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., who criticized the president on Saturday for failing to punish Russia for providing bounties to the Taliban, in addition to Mr. Biden’s son, Hunter, who’s the goal of unsubstantiated claims that he helped a Ukrainian power agency curry favor with the Obama administration when his father was vice chairman.
“No one’s been more durable on Russia than the Trump Administration,” Mr. Trump tweeted. “With Corrupt Joe Biden & Obama, Russia had a discipline day, taking up vital elements of Ukraine — The place’s Hunter?”
American officers mentioned the Russian plot to pay bounties to Taliban fighters got here into focus over the past a number of months after intelligence analysts and Particular Operations forces put collectively key items of proof.
One official mentioned that the seizure of a considerable amount of American money at one Taliban web site acquired “all people’s consideration” in Afghanistan. It was not clear when the cash was recovered.
Two officers mentioned the details about the bounty searching was “well-known” among the many intelligence neighborhood in Afghanistan, together with the C.I.A.’s chief of station and different high officers there, just like the navy commandos searching the Taliban. The knowledge was distributed in intelligence studies and highlighted in a few of them.
Throughout the final a number of months, the evaluation was compiled and despatched up the chain of command to senior navy and intelligence officers, ultimately touchdown on the highest ranges of the White Home. The Safety Council assembly in March got here at a fragile time, because the coronavirus pandemic was turning into a disaster and prompting shutdowns across the nation.
A former American official mentioned that the intelligence analyst who briefs the president and the nationwide safety adviser, Robert C. O’Brien, working together with his chief of employees, Mark Meadows, would have been concerned in any determination to transient Mr. Trump on Russia’s actions. The director of the C.I.A., Gina Haspel, may need additionally weighed in, the previous official mentioned.
Ms. McEnany cited all three of these senior officers in her assertion saying the president had not been briefed.
Ms. Pelosi mentioned that if the president had not, actually, been briefed, then the nation must be involved that his administration was afraid to share with him data relating to Russia.
Ms. Pelosi mentioned that the episode underscored Mr. Trump’s accommodating stance towards Russia and that with him, “all roads result in Putin.”
“That is as dangerous because it will get, and but the president won’t confront the Russians on this rating, denies being briefed,” she mentioned. “Whether or not he’s or not, his administration is aware of, and a few of our allies who work with us in Afghanistan have been briefed and settle for this report.”
John R. Bolton, Mr. Trump’s former nationwide safety adviser, mentioned on the ABC program “This Week” that he was not conscious of the intelligence evaluation, however he questioned Mr. Trump’s response on Twitter.
“What would inspire the president to try this, as a result of it appears to be like dangerous if Russians are paying to kill People and we’re not doing something about it?” Mr. Bolton mentioned. “The presidential response is to say, ‘It’s not my accountability. No one advised me about it.’ And subsequently to duck any complaints that he hasn’t acted successfully.”
Mr. Bolton mentioned this summed up Mr. Trump’s decision-making on nationwide safety points. “It’s simply unconnected to the fact he’s coping with.”
Nicholas Fandos, Julian E. Barnes, Charlie Savage, Thomas Gibbons-Neff and Michael D. Shear contributed reporting.