Right here we go once more! US intelligence saying IRAN is paying bounties to kill People in Afghanistan is pure parody

It was Russia in June, now it’s Tehran. Don’t US analysts perceive that Taliban fighters actually don’t want any extra motivation to focus on American troops? That is merely politicized (un)intelligence that isn’t fooling anybody.

In line with CNN, the Iranian authorities has paid “bounties” to the Haqqani community, a terrorist group with shut hyperlinks to the Taliban, for six assaults on US and coalition forces in Afghanistan in 2019, together with one on December 11 which focused Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul, which wounded 4 US personnel.

This explosive allegation was contained in a Pentagon briefing doc which was reviewed by CNN. Whereas the bounties talked about have been attributed to an unnamed “international authorities,” CNN claims that sources “aware of” the intelligence named the nation as Iran. These bounties, and the assaults on US personnel they underwrote, performed a task within the deliberations that led to the assassination of Main Normal Qassem Soleimani, the pinnacle of the Iranian Quds Drive, by US forces in early January 2020, the community reported.

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The CNN report comes on the heels of comparable allegations relating to “bounties” paid by Russian navy intelligence to the Taliban, likewise for the aim of underwriting assaults on US and coalition personnel in Afghanistan. The Russian bounty story has since turned out to have been primarily based upon uncorroborated uncooked intelligence deemed by senior US officers as being too poorly sourced to be actionable by the president or his senior advisers. The intelligence was leaked to the press regardless, in what seemed to be an effort to undermine President Trump’s ongoing efforts to forge a peace settlement with the Taliban and to embarrass him within the leadup to the 2020 presidential election.

At first blush, it seems that the CNN reporting is reduce from the identical material as was the Russian “bounty” story. At the beginning (because the CNN experiences notes), the Haqqani community didn’t, and doesn’t, want monetary incentives from outdoors companies to encourage it to hold out assaults in opposition to US and/or coalition targets. As such, even when funds have been in truth despatched from Iran to the Haqqani community, the probability that they have been linked to the December 11 assault, or another, is just about nil.

The linkage attributed to the December 11 assault on Bagram Air Base and the choice by the US to assassinate Qassem Soleimani is likewise tenuous. Within the days, weeks and months following the Soleimani assassination, the Trump administration was referred to as to process by Congress and the media about its justification for the Soleimani strike. Whereas an excessive amount of weight was given to a rocket assault on Okay-2 Air Base in Iraq on December 27 that killed a US civilian contractor, there was no point out at any time about any Iranian “bounty” scheme ongoing inside Afghanistan, even though a direct correlation between such a “bounty” and the necessity to kill Soleimani would have been a stronger argument in favor of the assault on the Iranian normal.

US intelligence has claimed that Iran has been offering “modest” quantities of armaments to the Taliban on an ongoing foundation since 2007, one thing each the Taliban and Iran deny. In line with statements made by US intelligence spokespersons in November 2019, this help was beefed up in 2015 to help the Taliban in confronting Islamic State (IS, previously ISIS) inside Afghanistan. No point out was product of any “bounty” scheme, though Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did hyperlink the Iranian help to an assault on US forces in Might 2019.

Whereas there may be proof to counsel that Iran and the Taliban loved some kind of a relationship relationship again to 2007, this relationship appeared centered on supporting Taliban forces primarily based out of western Afghanistan, alongside the border with Iran; there was no proof that this relationship included the cost of “bounties” for focusing on US personnel.

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Furthermore, there was no suggestion that on the time of the December 27, 2019 assault on Bagram Air Base, Iran was offering assist to the Haqqani community, a Sunni terrorist group with shut hyperlinks to Pakistani intelligence and which operates out of the Pakistani metropolis of Quetta. Certainly, the primary indication of an Iranian connection to the Haqqani community got here within the aftermath of the signing of the US-Taliban peace settlement in February 2020, when fringe components of the Taliban, together with allies throughout the Haqqani community, broke away to be able to proceed the wrestle in opposition to the US in Afghanistan.

Even this reporting is sketchy – the alleged Iranian-Taliban-Haqqani cooperation was within the “early levels of forming,” not indicative of the sort of maturity that will have needed to exist to maintain any viable bounty scheme. Furthermore, any cooperation that was nonetheless in its infancy in February 2020, couldn’t have been the idea of an association relating to an assault that occurred in December 2019. Lastly, an Iranian-Haqqani bounty scheme would fly within the face of the general public dedication by the Haqqani community in assist of the US-Taliban peace settlement. In brief, the CNN report fails on issues of truth and logic.

The timing of the CNN report offers the best perception as to why such a poorly sourced and thinly argued declare could be made in opposition to Iran presently, coming because it does on the heels of the US dropping a significant vote within the UN Safety Council regarding the lifting of an arms embargo in opposition to Iran.

This embarrassing defeat, during which the US was solely in a position to garner a single extra vote in assist of its decision, has set the stage for a fair larger confrontation on the UN over so-called “snap-back” sanctions the US seeks to impose on Iran.

The Iran-Haqqani bounty allegation was leaked by individuals within the US intelligence group who haven’t any qualms about injecting manufactured and/or deceptive intelligence into the American information cycle at a critically delicate time, with lower than 90 days remaining till the 2020 US presidential election. As a substitute of searching for to embarrass President Trump, this leak is designed to bolster the Trump administration’s argument that Iran is a risk worthy of sustaining a significant confrontation on the Safety Council which might threaten the legitimacy and viability of that group.

Ultimately, the motives behind an intelligence leak are irrelevant. The US intelligence group, via its repeated use of well-timed leaks to affect coverage by deceiving the American public concerning the reality, has proven itself to be a extremely politicized establishment that operates on the whim of anonymous partisan operatives, and never in the very best pursuits of america.

That it will possibly nonetheless ask for and obtain a finances in extra of $ 80 billion per 12 months is a harsh indictment of simply how decrepit the US system of presidency has grow to be, the place a blind eye continues to be turned in relation to the blatant abuse of intelligence for functions aside from what it was meant for.