{"id":430921,"date":"2021-04-16T16:06:32","date_gmt":"2021-04-16T20:06:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=430921"},"modified":"2021-04-16T16:06:34","modified_gmt":"2021-04-16T20:06:34","slug":"intelligence-community-shows-little-confidence-in-claims-russia-paid-bounties-to-taliban-to-attack-u-s-troops","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/intelligence-community-shows-little-confidence-in-claims-russia-paid-bounties-to-taliban-to-attack-u-s-troops\/","title":{"rendered":"Intelligence community shows little confidence in claims Russia paid bounties to Taliban to attack U.S. troops"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">32<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fintelligence-community-shows-little-confidence-in-claims-russia-paid-bounties-to-taliban-to-attack-u-s-troops%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=430921&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div id=\"attachment_2399026\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\">\n<p id=\"caption-attachment-2399026\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Photo by John Moore\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<h5>OAN Newsroom<br \/>UPDATED 12:48 PM PT \u2013 Friday, April 16, 2021<\/h5>\n<p>The U.S. Intelligence Community has not put very much faith in a report that Russia paid bounties to the Taliban to attack U.S. troops in Afghanistan. This information came during a call between a senior Biden administration official and reporters Thursday, who said the Intelligence Community had \u201clow to moderate confidence\u201d in the report.<\/p>\n<p>This assessment shows the Intelligence Community has considered the report \u201cunproven and possibly untrue.\u201d The claims, which were roundly rejected by President Trump when they came to light in July, said Russian intelligence officers sought to encourage Taliban attacks against U.S. coalition personnel in Afghanistan in 2019.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, on Thursday, the Biden administration announced sanctions against Russia linked to the massive SolarWinds hack. Officials were quick to point out the sanctions were not linked to the bounty claims.<\/p>\n<p>When asked about the Intelligence Community\u2019s assessment, Press Secretary Jen Psaki noted the \u201clow to moderate confidence,\u201d however, didn\u2019t back down on the belief that Russia was somehow involved in attacks in Afghanistan.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur Intelligence Community, I should say, assesses that a General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate \u2014 GRU, also known as \u2014 managed interaction with individuals in Afghan criminal networks,\u201d Psaki said. \u201cWe have high confidence in that assessment and the involvement of this GRU\u2019s unit is consistent with Russia\u2019s encouraging attacks against U.S. and coalition personnel in Afghanistan.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Psaki instead put the burden on the Kremlin to explain the claims. The White House press secretary also walked around a question on whether or not Joe Biden regretted attacking President Trump over the bounties report on the campaign trail.<\/p>\n<p>According to the top military officials at the time the claims came out, the report was \u201cuncorroborated,\u201d but they were looking into the matter.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat is a unique, discrete piece of information that is not corroborated. I, and the Secretary and many others are taking it serious,\u201d General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, stated. \u201cWe\u2019re gonna get to the bottom of it. When I find out if, in fact, it\u2019s true. And if it is true, we will take action.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Pentagon also noted its own intelligence-gathering efforts did not generate the report, noting as late as September it remained uncorroborated. The commander of the U.S. Central Command that same month said he hadn\u2019t seen sufficient evidence to prove Russian officials paid the Taliban.<\/p>\n<p>No further reports verifying the claims were ever released.<\/p>\n<p>According to Psaki and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thedailybeast.com\/us-intel-walks-back-claim-russians-put-bounties-on-american-troops\">reports<\/a>, the claims of \u201cbounties\u201d came from \u201cdetainee reporting,\u201d which suggests the story may have come from a prisoner telling their jailer what they thought would free them from confinement.<\/p>\n<h4>MORE NEWS:&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.oann.com\/officer-shoots-kills-man-who-opened-fire-on-san-antonio-airport\/\">Officer Shoots, Kills Man Who Opened Fire On San Antonio Airport<\/a><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>(Photo by John Moore\/Getty Images) OAN NewsroomUPDATED 12:48 PM PT \u2013 Friday, April 16, 2021 The U.S. Intelligence Community has not put very much faith in a report that Russia &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2276126,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-430921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430921"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430921\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2276126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}