Russian bounty offer to Taliban: Trump casts aspersions on newspaper report

WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump denied Sunday being briefed on intelligence that reportedly showed Russia had offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing US soldiers in Afghanistan.

The report by the New York Times sparked renewed questions about Trump´s reluctance to confront Russia over behaviour that, if accurate, would represent a serious national security challenge.

In a pair of early-morning tweets, Trump angrily slammed the report as "probably just another phony Times hit job, just like their failed Russia Hoax." "Nobody briefed or told me, @VP Pence, or Chief of Staff @MarkMeadows about the so-called attacks on our troops in Afghanistan by Russians, as reported through an ‘anonymous source’ by the Fake News @nytimes," he wrote. "Everybody is denying it & there have not been many attacks on us." "Nobody´s been tougher on Russia than the Trump Administration."

The Times, citing anonymous officials, said Trump was briefed on the US intelligence findings in March, but has not decided how to respond.

According to the report, US intelligence had concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit offered rewards to Taliban-linked militants to kill troops of the US-led coalition in Afghanistan. The rewards were purportedly incentives to target US forces as Trump tries to withdraw troops from the conflict-torn country -- one of the militants´ key demands -- and end America´s longest war.

While Trump cast aspersions on the Times report, neither he nor other top administration officials denied the underlying intelligence conclusion about the Russian activities.

John Ratcliffe, the new director of national intelligence, issued a statement late Saturday denying Trump or Pence had been briefed "on any intelligence alleged by the New York Times in its reporting." He also vouched for an earlier White House statement that denied Trump had been briefed on the matter but left open the possibility that the intelligence existed.

"This does not speak to the merit of the alleged intelligence but to the inaccuracy of The New York Times story erroneously suggesting that President Trump was briefed on this matter,” White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany said.

John Bolton, Trump´s former national security advisor and now peddling a highly critical tell-all book, said if it´s true Russia was paying to have US troops killed, “that is a very, very serious matter.”

Speaking on NBC´s “Meet the Press,” Bolton said, “To me it looks like just another day at the office in the Trump White House. “I´ve never recalled a circumstance where the president himself goes out of his way to say he wasn´t briefed on something.”

Top Democratic lawmaker Nancy Pelosi accused Trump of seeking to “ignore any allegation against Russia.” “This is totally outrageous. You would think that the minute the president heard of it he would want to know more instead of denying that he knew anything,” she said on ABC´s “This Week.”

The Taliban have denied the report, reiterating that they were committed to an accord signed with Washington in February that paves the way for withdrawing all foreign forces from Afghanistan by next year. The militants also said homemade explosives account for most fatalities among US forces. “The 19-year jihad of the Islamic Emirate is not indebted to the beneficence of any intelligence organ or foreign country,” the Taliban said in a statement issued in Kabul.

Russia also denounced the report, with its embassy in Washington tweeting that the “baseless and anonymous accusations” in the Times story had “already led to direct threats to the life of employees” at its embassies in Washington and London.