BEIRUT (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th August, 2020) Suhail Shaheen, the spokesman for the political office of the Taliban militant movement, rejected the claims that Russia paid the Taliban for killing US troops in Afghanistan, stressing that these baseless allegations were nothing but a defamation campaign of those opposing the Afghan peace process.
"First of all, it is a baseless allegation. There is no truth in that. And these reports are a part of the campaign by opponents of the peace process. They want to harm and damage the current peace process. And these wrong and baseless information has been provided by the Kabul NDS [National Directorate of Security] to some journalists in Europe and the USA in order to sabotage and harm the peace agreement. It holds no reality, it is only a campaign against the peace process. So, we totally reject that," Shaheen told Sputnik in a phone interview.
The New York Times reported in June that US intelligence had informed President Donald Trump in a February daily briefing about a suspected effort by Russia to place bounties on US soldiers in Afghanistan.
Trump previously called the article a hoax, while White House officials and senior US military leaders publicly said that the intelligence was not convincing. Russia denied the claim as another fake story that was part of the political infighting in the US.
The United States signed a peace deal with the Taliban in February that stipulated a phased 14-month troop withdrawal period and a ceasefire between both sides, effectively ending the confrontation which began in 2001. The US-Taliban agreement also envisioned a mutual release of prisoners between the Kabul administration and the militant group, and the beginning of the intra-Afghan talks.
