NATO officials say they were briefed on Russian bounties on US soldiers in Afghanistan — even though Trump claims he wasn't

Three NATO officials say they had been briefed on intelligence that Russian operatives were secretly offering cash bounties to Taliban-linked militants for US casualties in Afghanistan — as President Donald Trump claimed he was not, and dismissed news reports on the intelligence as a "possibly another fabricated Russia Hoax."

The revelation that US intelligence had briefed the White House on the Taliban bounties had been a closely-held secret for several months, until US officials began briefing UK and other European allies last week.

Multiple news organizations reported that US investigators are now investigating an April 2019 roadside bomb attack that killed three Marines as well as a number of "insider" attacks where Afghan troops turned on their Western trainers.

One of the intelligence officials, who is from a Western European country, said there was evidence that the Russian operatives who dealt with the Taliban were connected to Unit 29155, a shadowy Russian military intelligence group that has been implicated in attacks in the UK and Bulgaria with chemical weapons, as well as an attempted coup in Montenegro in 2016.

Unit 29155 has been operating for at least a decade, but its existence was not publicly known until last year.

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