The White House says the intelligence community does not have conclusive evidence that Russian intelligence operatives encouraged the Taliban to attack American troops in Afghanistan.
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The assessment, revealed on Thursday as the US announced a host of new sanctions on the Russian government, undermines one of the sharpest attacks Joe Biden and other Democrats levelled against former President Donald Trump during the 2020 White House race.
Biden repeatedly attacked Trump on the campaign trail for not standing up to Russian President Vladimir Putin despite his administration being aware of intelligence suggesting Russian agents were offering bounties to the Taliban.
But on Thursday, White House press secretary Jen Psaki said that after a review of those classified reports, the intelligence community determined it had only "low to moderate confidence" in their authenticity.
She said that was due in part to the ways in which the intelligence was obtained, including from interrogations of Afghan detainees.
In June, The Associated Press reported that Trump White House officials were briefed on intelligence about potential bounties in 2019 and again in 2020.
Then-national security adviser Robert O'Brien said Trump himself had not been briefed on the matter because the intelligence reports "have not been verified".
US military commanders at the time also said the raw intelligence did not lead them to change their force protection posture in Afghanistan.
The intelligence assessments were first reported by The New York Times and prompted candidate Biden to repeatedly charge that Trump had abandoned US troops by not forcefully responding to the intelligence assessments.
Biden raised the subject of the reported bounties on US troops during his first call with Putin on January 26, the White House said at the time. No mention of the topic was revealed by the White House after their latest call on Tuesday.
Defence officials and military commanders repeatedly said the reports of bounties had not been corroborated by defence intelligence agencies and that they were not convinced the reports were credible. They also said they didn't believe any bounties resulted in US military deaths.
The White House said Thursday's sanctions were in response to Russia's interference in US elections, crackdown on dissidents, cyber-intrusions and its occupation of Crimea - but not the reported "bounties" placed on American troops.
"The reason that they have low to moderate confidence in this judgment is in part because it relies on detainee reporting, and due to the challenging environment and also due to the challenging operating environment in Afghanistan," Psaki said.
"So it's challenging to gather this intelligence and this data."
Psaki added that US intelligence has evidence that Russian military intelligence, known as the GRU, interacts with individuals in Afghan criminal networks.
"This information really puts the burden on Russia and the Russian government to explain their engagement here," she said.
Australian Associated Press