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According to US intelligence, a Russian unit placed bounties on heads in Afghanistan. Included among the targets were American service members. There’s speculation that the Russians wanted to get even for a failed attack in Syria against a US outpost. Some suggest that the Russians are trying to undermine our efforts in Afghanistan to keep us bogged down there.<\/p>\n
From DNYUZ:<\/span><\/p>\n Islamist militants, or armed criminal elements closely associated with them, are believed to have collected some bounty money, the officials said. Twenty Americans were killed in combat in Afghanistan in 2019, but it was not clear which killings were under suspicion.<\/p>\n The intelligence finding was briefed to President Trump, and the White House’s National Security Council discussed the problem at an interagency meeting in late March, the officials said. Officials developed a menu of potential options — starting with making a diplomatic complaint to Moscow and a demand that it stop, along with an escalating series of sanctions and other possible responses, but the White House has yet to authorize any step, the officials said.<\/p>\n An operation to incentivize the killing of American and other NATO troops would be a significant and provocative escalation of what American and Afghan officials have said is Russian support for the Taliban, and it would be the first time the Russian spy unit was known to have orchestrated attacks on Western troops.<\/p>\n Any involvement with the Taliban that resulted in the deaths of American troops would also be a huge escalation of Russia’s so-called hybrid war against the United States, a strategy of destabilizing adversaries through a combination of such tactics as cyberattacks, the spread of fake news and covert and deniable military operations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n More information could be obtained on DNYUZ<\/a> and on Fox News<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"