Here is the problem. I.e. Bounty hunting of US soldiers in Afghanistan now has a defined middle man, who got rich off it. Payback for 1980s.
If there is one contractor getting rich off being a middle man, as defined in a story, there will be hundreds more. I.e. this is simply how irregular war works. Secondly, the story fits right into the GRU playbook of subcontracting middle men as cut outs. Three, there is no way on Gods green earth, that if one written report was included in a summary sent to the WH that others like it were not included. Four, a story this explosive will undoubtedly get Pentagon attention and will lead to requests for active push back.
Pretending that the story was "raw intelligence" which would be buried as noise not worth sending the WH, and inconsequential, is simply not how NIEs work An NIE (National intelligence estimate) would DEFINITELY include such items in due to how explosive the story is.
Present officials in the WH claiming otherwise are , how to say making fools out of themselves.
The GRU, also during other counter insurgencies performed by the USA has used similar cut outs for throwing dirt in the gears of counter insurgency. The method is cheap, compared to sending in Russian Troops, and as seen in the Afghan 1980s Russian invasion is a copy of what was done in Afghanistan from operations from Pakistan meant to harass Soviet Troops.
In the 1980s, Soviet Troops were famous for dropping exploding toys which were booby traps. In the 2017-2020 time frame what the GRU is doing is classic "death of a thousand cuts" meant to wound and break morale of those in the field.
I.e. the modus operandi is one of dirty, irregular war, and it works.
With this in mind, even if the story were NOT initially included in a VERBAL briefing in the WH, it would get IMMEDIATE attention due to the tactics rich history in the Afghan decades long exposure to dirty war tactics.
Special pleading otherwise is, how can one say it, as credible as a 9 USD bill.
With that, see the story below
Quote
Afghan Contractor Handed Out Russian Cash to Kill Americans, Officials Say
A small-time businessman became a key middleman for bounties on coalition troops in Afghanistan, U.S. intelligence reports say. Friends saw him grow rich, but didn’t know how.
By Mujib Mashal, Eric Schmitt, Najim Rahim and Rukmini Callimachi
- July 1, 2020Updated
- 10:56 p.m. ET
KABUL, Afghanistan — He was a lowly drug smuggler, neighbors and relatives say, then ventured into contracting, seeking a slice of the billions of dollars the U.S.-led coalition was funneling into construction projects in Afghanistan.
But he really began to show off his wealth in recent years, after establishing a base in Russia, though how he earned those riches remained mysterious. On his regular trips home to northern Afghanistan, he drove the latest model cars, protected by bodyguards, and his house was recently upgraded to a four-story villa.
Now Rahmatullah Azizi stands as a central piece of a puzzle rocking Washington, named in American intelligence reports and confirmed by Afghan officials as a key middleman who for years handed out money from a Russian military intelligence unit to reward Taliban-linked fighters for targeting American troops in Afghanistan, according to American and Afghan officials.
As security agencies connected the dots of the bounty scheme and narrowed in on him, they carried out sweeping raids to arrest dozens of his relatives and associates about six months ago, but discovered that Mr. Azizi had sneaked out of Afghanistan and was likely back in Russia. What they did find in one of his homes, in Kabul, was about half a million dollars in cash.
American and Afghan officials have maintained for years that Russia was running clandestine operations to undermine the U.S. mission in Afghanistan and aid the Taliban.
But U.S. officials only recently concluded that a Russian spy agency was paying bounties for killing coalition troops, including Americans, which the Kremlin and the Taliban have denied.
- Thanks for reading The Times.
According to officials briefed on the matter, U.S. intelligence officials believe the program is run by Unit 29155, an arm of the Russian military intelligence agency known as the G.R.U. that has carried out assassinations and other operations overseas.
That a conduit for the payments would be someone like Mr. Azizi — tied to the American reconstruction effort, enmeshed in the regional netherworld, but not prominent enough to attract outside attention — speaks to the depth of Russia’s reach into the increasingly complicated Afghan battlefield, exploiting a nexus of crime and terror to strike blows with years of deniability.
White House officials initially said that President Trump was never briefed on the bounty scheme.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times
The public revelation last week of that conclusion has touched off a political firestorm in Washington. White House officials said at first that President Trump was never briefed on the matter, but it emerged that the intelligence assessment was included in a written briefing to the president in late February, if not earlier.
As Democratic and Republican officials have expressed alarm at the news, and the administration’s lack of action in response, the White House has insisted that the information was uncertain.
Details of Mr. Azizi’s role in the bounty scheme were confirmed through a dozen interviews that included U.S. and Afghan officials aware of the intelligence and the raids that led to it; his neighbors and friends; and business associates of the middle men arrested on suspicion of involvement. All spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation.
U.S. intelligence reports named Mr. Azizi as a key middleman between the G.R.U. and militants linked to the Taliban who carried out the attacks. He was among those who collected the cash in Russia, which intelligence files described as multiple payments of “hundreds of thousands of dollars.” Those files were among the materials provided to Congress this week.
Through a layered and complex Hawala system — an informal way to transfer money — he delivered it to Afghanistan for the missions, the files say. The transfers were often sliced into smaller amounts that routed through several regional countries before arriving in Afghanistan, associates of the arrested businessmen said.
Afghan officials said prizes of as much as $100,000 per killed soldier were offered for American and coalition targets.
Just how the money was dispersed to militants carrying out attacks for the Taliban, and at what level the coordination occurred, remains unclear. But officials say the network had grown increasingly ambitious and was in communication with more senior levels in Taliban military ranks to discuss potential targets.
About six months ago, Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, raided the offices of several Hawala businessmen both in Kabul, the capital, and in Kunduz, in the north, who were believed to be associated with the bounty scheme, making more than a dozen arrests.
“The target of the operation was Rahmat, who was going back and forth to Russia for a long time and said he worked there but no one knew what he did,” said Safiullah Amiry, the deputy head of Kunduz provincial council, referring to Mr. Azizi. But by the time the raid took place, “Rahmat had fled.”
“From what I heard from security officials, the money had come from Russia through Rahmat,” he added.
Russia was initially seen as cooperating with American efforts after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, as its interests in defeating Al Qaeda, an international Islamist terror group, aligned with those of the United States.
But in recent years, as the two powers clashed elsewhere, the Kremlin grew wary of the prolonged United States presence and moved closer to the Taliban, hedging its bets on who would take power in a post-American Afghanistan.
The Russians also saw an opportunity for long-awaited payback for the Soviet humiliation in Afghanistan in the 1980s, when the Red Army withdrew after being unable to defeat a United States-backed insurgency.
Russia has walked a fine balance in recent years, eager to bloody the American nose, but wary of Afghanistan collapsing into a chaos that could spill over its borders. Publicly, Russia has admitted only to information-sharing with the Taliban in fighting the Islamic State in Afghanistan, a common foe.
The U.S. conclusion in 2019 that the Russians were sending bounty money to the Taliban came at a delicate time in the conflict, just as the United States was deep into negotiations with the insurgents over a deal to withdraw the remaining American troops from the country.
Some of the attacks believed to be part of the bounty scheme were carried out around the time the Trump administration was actively reaching out to Russia for cooperation on those peace talks. Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. special envoy leading the talks, repeatedly met with Russian officials to build consensus around the American endgame.
End of quote
Summary, burying the story as not worth actionable "intel" is not how things work. This story fits right into the modus operandi of irregular dirty war and it would cause alarm bells ringing all over Washington DC.
Don't be punked people, this is classic dirty war
Andrew Beckwith, PhD