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Why is Russian-Taliban Bounty Scandal From 2020 Back In News?

The deep state playing more games here – designed to pin down Trump, and prevent any international progress from taking place…


Andrew Korybko writes for Substack

The Insider, which is designated as a foreign agent in Russia, wants to complicate Trump’s peace talks with Russia, improve US ties with Pakistan at the expense of ties with India, and pry Tajikistan away from the CSTO.

The Insider brought summer 2020’s Russian-Taliban bounty scandal back to the news after publishing their latest report on this subject last week. They’re designated as a foreign agent by Russia, and two of their article’s three co-authors – Christo Grozev and Roman Dobrokhotov – are wanted by the Interior Ministry. Grozev also used to lead Bellingcat’s Russia investigations, who are also designated as foreign agents and which Russia’s foreign spy chief accused of being in cahoots with Western intelligence.

The aforesaid details are being shared so that readers know better than to take their words at face value. The Insider’s report is full of bombshells about the Russian-Taliban bounty scandal, and regardless of whether or not one believes what they wrote, they’re bound to have a narrative impact. That’s because they claim that Russia did indeed pay the Taliban for each American that they killed, there’s allegedly a connection to regional actors too, and all of this is coming out right before Trump’s reinauguration.

In the order that they were mentioned, The Insider purports to have mapped GRU’s Afghan assassination network, which they present as lending credence to these accusations. Readers can review their report to learn more about what they supposedly discovered, but it boils down to spies using diplomatic and business cover to pass along orders and payments to the Taliban. The impression is that Russia is guilty as charged, which could justify the Biden Administration designating it as a state sponsor of terrorism.

As for the regional actors that are allegedly involved, the primary one is Iran, which The Insider claims arranged the first Russian-Taliban contacts. They also reported that Russia funneled arms to the Taliban from its base in Tajikistan and is plotting to help them against Dushanbe. There’s also a vague connection between GRU’s assassins and India. The first claim could lead to more US pressure on Iran, the second could sow discord between these allies, while the third could derail the likely Indo-US rapprochement.

And finally, the timing of all this is clearly meant to complicate Trump’s efforts to negotiate an end to the Ukrainian Conflict with Russia. Even if the Biden Administration doesn’t designate it as a state sponsor of terrorism in order to maximally impede his diplomacy, the media attention that might be given to The Insider’s report could lead to more manufactured pressure on him to reconsider his plans to meet with Putin. There could also be important implications for Trump’s foreign policy towards the broader region.

Prior to this development, Trump was largely indifferent towards the Taliban, his envoy for special missions Richard Grenell seemed ready to leverage newly worsening US ties with Pakistan to secure Imran Khan’s release as part of a grand deal, while a US-Indo rapprochement seemed inevitable. All of that might change if his administration believes the previously mentioned allegations and thus decides to improve US-Pakistani ties at the Taliban’s and India’s expense in the ways that’ll now be described…

Continue this analysis at Substack

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Get Your Copy of New Dawn Magazine #203 - Mar-Apr Issue