General Kenneth McKenzie, the commander of US Central Command, (CENTCOM) told reporters he doubted that intelligence of Russian bounties to Taliban (outlawed in Russia) fighters actually led to deaths of US troops in Afghanistan. He voiced this position in an interview published on Tuesday with several American media outlets.
"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 ABC quotes the General as saying.
He stressed that he had not received information about Moscow's influence on the situation in Afghanistan. McKenzie also noted that since the Taliban have been actively attacking the US military in recent years, a series of articles in The New York Times has not changed the Pentagon's approach to ensuring the security of its employees on Afghan territory.
On June 26, this publication issued an allegation that a Russian military intelligence unit allegedly encouraged Taliban militants to carry out attacks on international coalition troops in Afghanistan. The newspaper claimed that such conclusions of the US intelligence services were presented to US President Donald Trump "several months ago", and the National Security Council of the White House discussed this issue in late March.
The President, who represents the Republican party of the United States, wrote on Twitter on June 28 that the national intelligence service recognized unreliable information about attempts attributed to Russia to offer a reward to Afghan militants for the murders of American soldiers. He suggested that The New York Times might have staged "another fabricated hoax on the subject of Russia" to smear Republicans.
The Press Secretary of the President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Peskov on June 29 called the mentioned statements a lie and an "absolute hoax". The Russian Foreign Ministry described the first publication on this topic in the American press as containing deliberately false information.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Creative Commons
Based on materials from TASS