- Iran has paid fines to the Taliban for targeting U.S. troops, according to a U.S. intelligence report first reported by CNN.
- The suspected bounty plot was allegedly cited by US officials as part of the justification for the drone strike that killed Iranian Major General Qassem Soleimani.
- The Trump administration has decided to take more explicit action over the alleged Iranian bailout to protect ongoing, tenuous peace talks with the Taliban.
- The CNN report comes after the Trump administration in recent weeks has been dealing with questioning and pressure over reports that Russia is also paying fines to Taliban-linked militants for targeting U.S. troops.
- President Donald Trump has downplayed the Russian bounty reports, and the Trump administration has not taken any red action.
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US intelligence agencies have determined that Iran is paying fines to the Taliban for targeting US troops and coalition forces in Afghanistan, CNN’s Zachary Cohen reported on Monday.
Intelligence agencies identified payments linked to six attacks carried out by the Taliban in 2019, including a deadly suicide bombing at Bagram Air Base in December. The bombing killed two civilians and injured dozens, including four Americans.
Bounties were paid by a foreign government to the Haqqani network, whose leader is the deputy head of the Afghan Taliban, for the Bagram attack, according to a Pentagon information document verified by CNN.
Two sources familiar with the intelligence told CNN that the foreign government referred to in the document is Iran.
In early January, President Donald Trump ordered a drone strike that killed Iran’s top general, Qassem Soleimani, in Iraq. The deadly strike came less than a month after Bagram’s attack and after U.S. agencies engaged in what CNN described as a lengthy process to develop options to counter Iran’s monetary support for militant groups in Afghanistan.
The suspected Iranian bounty plot was cited by US officials as a partial justification for the Soleimani strike, a current administration official and former senior official with knowledge of the situation told CNN.
In March, the Trump administration decided that in the midst of ongoing, tenuous peace talks with the Taliban, it was not the right time to take more specific action following the alleged Iranian bounty plot, several sources told CNN.
The Trump administration has not spoken publicly about the intelligence or condemned Iran over the alleged fines in an apparent attempt to protect the peace talks. Trump has repeatedly promised to withdraw US troops from Afghanistan, but has yet to reach that goal with the 2020 elections less than three months away.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider.
Iran is not the first US opponent to be accused of paying the Taliban to go to US troops.
The New York Times in late June reported that U.S. intelligence agencies had observed that Russia was paying bribes to Taliban-linked militants to target U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
The Trump administration has not taken any known responses to the alleged Russian fines.
Trump dismissed reports of the suspected Russian bounty plot as “false news”, although the White House said in early July that the president had been at the time “fully informed” about the matter. Earlier, the administration said Trump was never informed about Intel, although recent reports contradict this claim, suggesting he may have been informed as early as March 2019.
There is also an ongoing U.S. intelligence investigation into the case.
The president said in late July that he had not confronted Russian President Vladimir Putin about the alleged payments to the Taliban-linked militants during their first phone call since reports of the suspected bounty plot appeared.
