Pentagon says ‘no corroborating’ evidence to stand up NYT report on Russian bounties

The Defense Department said late Monday that there is “no corroborating evidence” to support the explosive New York Times report last week that said the Russian military offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants to kill U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
The [url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/politics/russia-afghanistan-bounties.html?action=click&module=Top stories&pgtype=Homepage]report [/url]sent shock waves through Washington and prompted President Trump to outright deny knowing anything about the intel cited in the report.
“To date, DOD has no corroborating evidence to validate the recent allegations found in open-source reports. Regardless, we always take the safety and security of our forces in Afghanistan—and around the world—most seriously and therefore continuously adopt measures to prevent harm from potential threats,” Jonathan Hoffman, the chief Pentagon spokesman, said in a statement.
The New York Times, citing unnamed officials, [url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/26/us/politics/russia-afghanistan-bounties.html?action=click&module=Top stories&pgtype=Homepage]reported [/url]Friday that it is believed that some “Islamist militants” or “criminal elements” collected payouts. The report pointed out that 20 Americans were killed there in 2019. It was not clear if any of those deaths were the result of a bounty.
Despite the Pentagon statement, the picture remains murky.
Fox News reported earlier Monday that multiple intelligence threat streams indicated Russian intelligence operatives did offer bounties to Taliban-linked militants to kill U.S. troops -- but while the National Security Council met recently to come up with a number of responses, it did not brief President Trump.
A senior U.S. official who has been briefed on the matter said that the information the NSC received was based on “several streams of intelligence of concern” with some of it being contradictory and some open to interpretation.
A military source said there was a raid in Afghanistan early this year that found a large amount of cash, and a fighter said in a subsequent interrogation the money came from Russia -- but it was not easily verified. Further, it was not a piece of intelligence that made its way into briefings for senior leaders at the Pentagon.
U.S. officials are now concerned that, because of the leaked story, Russia will try to cover its tracks on this so-called bounty scheme. Further, the Russians and other actors including the Iranians have been interfering in Afghanistan for some time in an effort to harm U.S. interests, Fox News is told

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pentagon-says-no-corroborating-evidence-to-stand-up-nyt-report-on-russian-bounties
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Pentagon says ‘no corroborating’ evidence to stand up NYT report on Russian bounties

Pentagon says ‘no corroborating’ evidence to stand up NYT report on Russian bounties

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