assassination attempts in Europe had offered the alleged
bounties last year. The Russian embassy in the US
said the claims had led to threats to diplomats. The
Taliban also denied there was any such deal with Russian
intelligence. The reports come as the US attempts
to negotiate a peace deal to end the 19-year war in Afghanistan
According to the New York Times, President Donald Trump
was briefed on the reports in March, but the White House
has denied this. "Neither the president nor the
vice-president were briefed on the alleged Russian bounty
intelligence," said White House press secretary Kayleigh
McEnany on Saturday evening. However, she added, "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."
The Afghan war: The short and long story What could peace
look like? Who are the Taliban? The unnamed officials
cited by the New York Times said US intelligence agencies
had concluded months ago that a unit of Russia's GRU military
intelligence agency had sought to destabilise its adversaries
by covertly offering bounties for successful attacks on coalition
forces. Islamist militants, or armed criminal elements closely
associated with them were believed to have collected some
money, the newspaper said. In a series of Twitter posts,
the Russian embassy in the US accused the paper of promoting fake news.

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