The US has gathered intel that Russian intelligence officers have offered to pay bounties to Taliban fighters who kill Americans, 3 people briefed on the matter tell NBCNews.
According to The Times, the reporting was described in the President's Daily Brief, a written summary of high-level national security matters. NBC News has not confirmed whether Trump was given a briefing on the matter, but it would be unusual if top officials did not verbally brief the president on something this explosive.
Former national security adviser John Bolton told NBC's"Meet the Press" on Sunday that it would be"disturbing" if officials hadn't briefed the president on the matter.NBC News' sources were not able to make clear how persuasive the intelligence is. One source told The Times that the assessment was based in part on interviews with Afghan detainees. That alone would not prove the case, but the U.S.
One intelligence official told NBC News that the report isn't particularly surprising given the fraught history between the U.S. and Russia. The U.S. armed Afghan fighters with missiles to shoot down Russian helicopters in the 1980s when Russia was fighting in Afghanistan, part of a CIA covert action that killed many Russians. In 2018, U.S. forces killed a number of Russian mercenaries who were operating with pro-regime forces in Syria.
But other experts have said that if true, this is a serious escalation in Russia's post-Cold War actions against the U.S.Ken Dilanian is a correspondent covering intelligence and national security for the NBC News Investigative Unit.Courtney Kube is a correspondent covering national security and the military for the NBC News Investigative Unit.
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