KABUL: The Taliban on Saturday denied US media reports saying that a Russian intelligence unit secretly rewarded them for targeting American troops in Afghanistan.
“We have heard these reports and they are false and baseless,” Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban, told Arab News over the phone.
He added that the group had “neither sought nor received any aid from any country or intelligence agency in 19 years of war.”
Mujahid argued the Taliban have not been in possession of any advanced weapons, which according to him implies they had not received any foreign arms.
“We have used whatever resources we have had in Afghanistan or prepared for example roadside and car bombs from explosives and materials available locally.”
The Taliban, Mujahid said, have not been in possession of any advanced weapons to conduct sophisticated attacks on US targets, which could imply they had received foreign arms.
“We have used whatever resources we have had in Afghanistan or prepared for example roadside and car bombs from explosives and materials available locally.”
He said the group has not targeted the US military since the two sides signed a peace deal in Doha, Qatar, in late February. In accordance with the agreement, American troops should leave Afghanistan by spring 2021.
Earlier on Saturday, the New York Times and two other American dailies reported that American intelligence officials have concluded that a Russian military intelligence unit secretly offered bounties to Taliban-linked militants for killing coalition forces in Afghanistan and targeting American troops.
Mujahid commented that some circles in the US were disappointed by the Doha deal. “They want to prevent the withdrawal of Americans from here because they will lose the resources and income they have earned from continuing the war and want to do everything for their survival,” he said.
While Russia itself had suffered a disgraceful retreat after nearly 10 years of occupying Afghanistan in the 1980s, it has joined Iran, Pakistan and China in opposing the presence of American troops in the country.
Although Afghan officials in the past have not found any direct military links between the Taliban and Moscow, some provincial officials said that Russians provided intelligence to the group when it captured the northern city of Kunduz near the border with Tajikistan in 2015 and 2016.
According to analyst Zabihullah Pakteen, Russia has been a vocal supporter of the Taliban in their war against Daesh. He suggested that the US report on bounties could be referring to developments from before the Qatar deal and leaking it now could be linked to the pullout of American troops.
“Russian involvement in Afghanistan in giving bounties to kill US soldiers certainly puts pressure on the Trump administration as US election approaches. The most important aspect of intelligence leaking could be very well connected to troops withdrawal … so the US would have to stay to confront Russia and other adversaries in the region,” he told Arab News.
Some 4,400 out of 13,000 American troops have already left Afghanistan following the Doha deal.
Their withdrawal and ending America’s wars abroad was one of US President Donald Trump’s main campaign promises. The allegation of Taliban-Russian links, which could delay the troop pullout, comes as Trump is running for a second term in the White House in November’s election.
Taliban deny reports Russia paid them to attack US troops in Afghanistan
https://arab.news/cgzew
Taliban deny reports Russia paid them to attack US troops in Afghanistan
- Taliban spokesman says the group has not received any assistance from any country or intelligence agency in 19 years of war
- Analysts suggest the reports could be related to the withdrawal of American troops and upcoming US election
Afghanistan says it thwarted Pakistani airstrike on Bagram Air Base as fighting enters fourth day
- The fighting has been the most severe between the neighbors for years
- Pakistan accuses Taliban government of harboring militant groups that stage attacks against it
KABUL: Afghanistan thwarted attempted airstrikes on Bagram Air Base, the former US military base north of Kabul, authorities said Sunday, while cross-border fighting between Pakistan and Afghanistan stretched into a fourth day.
The fighting has been the most severe between the neighbors for years, with Pakistan declaring that it’s in “open war” with Afghanistan.
The conflict has alarmed the international community, particularly as the area is one where other militant organizations, including Al-Qaeda and the Daesh group, still have a presence and have been trying to resurface.
Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of harboring militant groups that stage attacks against it and also of allying with its archrival India.
Border clashes in October killed dozens of soldiers, civilians and suspected militants until a Qatari-mediated ceasefire ended the intense fighting. But several rounds of peace talks in Turkiye in November failed to produce a lasting agreement, and the two sides have occasionally traded fire since then.
On Sunday, the police headquarters of Parwan province, where Bagram is located, said in a statement that several Pakistani military jets had entered Afghan airspace “and attempted to bomb Bagram Air Base” at around 5 a.m.
The statement said Afghan forces responded with “anti-aircraft and missile defense systems” and had managed to thwart the attack.
There was no immediate response from Pakistan’s military or government regarding Kabul’s claim of attempted airstrikes on Bagram or the ongoing fighting.
Bagram was the United States’ largest military base in Afghanistan. It was taken over by the Taliban as they swept across the country and took control in the wake of the chaotic US withdrawal from the country in 2021. Last year, US President Donald Trump suggested he wanted to reestablish a US presence at the base.
The current fighting began when Afghanistan launched a broad cross-border attack on Thursday night, saying it was in retaliation for Pakistani airstrikes the previous Sunday.
Pakistan had said its airstrike had targeted the outlawed Pakistani Taliban, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP. Afghanistan had said only civilians were killed.
The TTP militant group, which is separate but closely allied with Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban, operates inside Pakistan, where it has been blamed for hundreds of deaths in bombings and other attacks over the years.
Pakistan accuses Afghanistan’s Taliban government of providing a safe haven within Afghanistan for the TTP, an accusation that Afghanistan denies.
After Thursday’s Afghan attack, Pakistani Defense Minister Khawaja Mohammad Asif declared that “our patience has now run out. Now it is open war between us.”
In the ongoing fighting, each side claims to have killed hundreds of the other side’s forces — and both governments put their own casualties at drastically lower numbers.
Two Pakistani security officials said that Pakistani ground forces were still in control on Sunday of a key Afghan post and a 32-square-kilometer area in the southern Zhob sector near Kandahar province, after having seized it during fighting Friday. The captured post and surrounding area remain under Pakistani control, they added. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly.
In Kabul, the Afghan government rejected Pakistan’s claims. Deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat called the reports “baseless.”
Afghan officials said that fighting had continued overnight and into Sunday in the border areas.
The police command spokesman for Nangarhar province, Said Tayyeb Hammad, said that anti-aircraft missiles were used from the provincial capital, Jalalabad, and surrounding areas on Pakistani fighter jets flying overhead Sunday morning.
Defense Ministry spokesman Enayatulah Khowarazmi said that Afghan forces had launched counterattacks with snipers across the border from Nangarhar, Paktia, Khost and Kandahar provinces overnight. He said that two Pakistani drones had been shot down and dozens of Pakistani soldiers had been killed.
Fitrat said that Pakistani drone attacks hit civilian homes in Nangarhar province late Saturday, killing a woman and a child, while mortar fire killed another civilian when it hit a home in Paktia province.
There was no immediate response to the claims from Pakistani officials.
