Trump Administration Says They Will Declassify Intelligence Showing China Offered Bounties for Dead U.S. Troops in Afghanistan

Here is another bounty-gate story in Afghanistan:

 The Trump administration is working to verify intelligence that shows China offered to pay militants in Afghanistan to kill American troops, a U.S. news website has reported, citing anonymous high-level sources.

“Administration officials across multiple agencies are currently working to corroborate the initial intelligence reports,” which is in the process of being declassified, the Axios news website, which broke the story, reported Wednesday.

National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien briefed President Donald Trump on the reports earlier this month, Axios reported.

But the intelligence the administration claims to have was “thinner even than reports that Russia offered payments to the Taliban to target U.S. and coalition troops, which were never corroborated,” another news website said, citing an unnamed government official.

Stars & Stripes

You can read more at the link, but if the Russians and Chinese were offering bounties they were not very good at it considering there has not been a U.S. troop death due to combat in Afghanistan since February. It seems it would be in their interest to get the U.S. out of Afghanistan and thus out of their geopolitical backyards. If so encouraging the Taliban to comply with the peace terms instead of offering bounties would be in their interest.