Russia may be involved in killing at least a dozen American service members in 2019.
The statement of Philippe Goffin, Belgium’s former Minister of Foreign Affairs and the country’s Minister of Defense, confirms the fact of the Russian bounties paid to the Taliban-linked militants for killing US troops, and allows identifying specific terrorist activity conduct with Russia’s financial support.
Mr. Goffin states that Belgium’s intelligence services were aware of financial rewards that Russia allegedly had offered to the Taliban in exchange for killing American and other Western troops in Afghanistan.
The Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces, known as the GRU, allegedly had offered Taliban fighters financial rewards in exchange for killing American and other North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) troops. Both the White House and the Kremlin denied the allegations, with US President Donald Trump dismissing them as “fake news” and “a hoax”.
Philippe Goffin told the Belgian Federal Parliament that his office was aware of the Russian bounty program. The minister was speaking to the parliamentary Committee on National Defense while he was responding to the committee members’ questions. According to Goffin, he had been briefed on the matter by the General Intelligence and Security Service (SGRS). He said the SGRS was “aware of Russian support for the Taliban in Afghanistan” and offered evidence “confirming Russian interference there”. Goffin said, the Belgian intelligence service knew about one Russian bounty program incident taken place in April, 2019, and resulted in the deaths of three American soldiers.
The comparison of data on the time period and the loss number points to an incident with the improvised explosive device blast near the air force base in the Afghan city of Bagram, Parvan province, on April 8, 2019, where three marines lost their lives. They were Cpl. Robert A. Hendriks, 25, Locust Valley, NY Sgt. Benjamin S. Hines, 31, York, PA Staff Sgt. Christopher K.A. Slutman, 43, Newark, DE Semper Fidelis, Marines. However, the Belgian intelligence service’s data revealing only one incident mentioned above is doubtful.
Earlier that day, two people lost their lives in a blast in Jalalabad, Afghanistan. The improvised explosive device was planted inside a military vehicle. As a result of the incident, five people were injured and hospitalized. According to our research, this incident is directly connected with Bagram blast and was well-coordinated. The military vehicle mined proves involvement of agents used by the enemy to plant improvised explosive devices.
The two incidents involve using improvised explosive devices and allow suggestion that the Russian bounty program financed terrorist attacks involving improvised explosive device blast rather than fire attacks, ambushes and direct actions. Russians can identify such actions and evaluate their effectiveness easier.
Analyzing the losses of the US Armed Forces in Afghanistan in 2019 one can suggest that, besides the cases mentioned-above, the Russian Bounty program ‘paid’ for killing Sgt. 1st Class ElisA. Barreto Ortiz, 34, from Morovis, Puerto Rico, died Sept. 5, 2019, when a Taliban suicide bomb tore through his convoy, and death of Sgt. 1st Class Michael J. Goble, 33, killed in a road side bombing in northern Kunduz province on Dec.23, 2019.
Taking into account the extremely high possibility that the terrorist attack on April,8 involving plant of an explosive device inside the car was likely conduct by an Afghan employee of a military base, two other attacks resulted in death of American service members were committed by Afghan soldiers under the Russian bounty program:
Army Spc. Michael Isaiah Nance, 24, of Chicago, killed July 29, 2019, after being shot by an Afghan soldier at a military camp in southern Uruzgan province;
Army Pfc. Brandon Jay Kreischer, 20, killed after an Afghan solider opened fire at a base in southern Uruzgan province, July 29, 2019.
