The Insider and Spiegel: from 2016 to 2019, the GRU paid Taliban militants about $30 million for terrorist attacks against the United States in Afghanistan

Russian military intelligence (GRU) maintained ties with the Taliban and other groups in Afghanistan and financed terrorist attacks against US soldiers and coalition troops. This was reported in an investigation by The Insider and Spiegel .

According to journalists, for each killed US or coalition serviceman, the militants were paid $200 thousand - while, according to one former NSA employee, in total, from 2016 to 2019, Russia paid the Taliban at least $30 million for carrying out terrorist attacks.

To transfer money to militants, the special services maintained a network of Afghan couriers disguised as a company that trades in precious stones. The head of the company was former smuggler Rahmatullah Azizi.

As The Insider found out, the Azizi family was recruited by unit 29155 of the GRU no later than 2015, thanks to cooperation with the special services, they moved to Russia, where they received asylum and new passports. According to the publication, Rahmatullah Azizi still lives in Moscow. In addition to his family, the GRU also recruited other Afghan residents.

The head of the program, as stated in the investigation, was Lieutenant General Ivan Kasyanenko, deputy commander of unit 29155. Since 2008, Kasyanenko served as a military attaché in Tehran, then he was transferred to Kabul. The main liaison between the GRU and the Taliban was Colonel Alexey Arkhipov, writes The Insider . The publication names Artem Rubtsov, a member of unit 29155, as another participant in the program.

According to journalists, with the help of terrorist attacks, Russian special services wanted to put pressure on the United States and coalition countries and push them to withdraw troops from the country. The withdrawal of American troops itself took place in 2020-2021.

The first reports that the GRU sponsored terrorist attacks against US soldiers and Western coalition troops appeared in 2020 from a leaked report from American intelligence agencies. The Taliban then denied this information and called the attacks on the US military spontaneous and self-financed. Later, the White House also reported that it did not have sufficient evidence to confirm information about the secret cooperation of the GRU and the Taliban.

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