Inside Russia’s bounty scheme
Afghan contractor handed out Russian cash to kill Americans, officials say
He was a lowly drug smuggler, neighbours and relatives say, then ventured into contracting, seeking a slice of the billions of dollars the US-led coalition was funnelling into construction projects in Afghanistan.
But he really began to show off his wealth in recent years, after establishing a base in Russia, though how he earned those riches remained mysterious. On his regular trips home to northern Afghanistan, he drove the latest model cars, protected by bodyguards, and his house was recently upgraded to a four-story villa.
Now Rahmatullah Azizi stands as a central piece of a puzzle rocking Washington, named in US intelligence reports and confirmed by Afghan officials as a key middleman who for years handed out money from a Russian military intelligence unit to reward Taliban-linked fighters for targeting US troops in Afghanistan, according to American and Afghan officials.
As security agencies connected the dots of the bounty scheme and narrowed in on him, they carried out sweeping raids to arrest dozens of his relatives and associates about six months ago but discovered that Azizi was likely back in Russia. What they did find in one of his homes, in Kabul, was about half a million dollars in cash.
American and Afghan officials for years have maintained Russia was running clandestine operations to undermine the US mission in Afghanistan. But they only recently concluded a Russian spy agency was paying bounties for killing American and coalition troops.
According to officials, US intelligence officials believe the programme is run by Unit 29155, an arm of the Russian military intelligence agency known as the GRU that has carried out assassinations and other operations overseas.
That a conduit for the payments would be someone like Azizi — tied to the US reconstruction effort, enmeshed in the regional netherworld but not prominent enough to attract outside attention — speaks to the depth of Russia’s reach into the increasingly complicated Afghan battlefield, exploiting a nexus of crime and terror to strike
blows with years of deniability.
The public revelation last week of that conclusion touched off a political firestorm in Washington. White House officials said President Donald Trump was never briefed on the matter, but it emerged the intelligence assessment was included in a written briefing to the president in late February.
As Democratic and Republican officials have expressed alarm at the news, and the administration’s lack of action in response, the White House has insisted that the information was uncertain. Details of Azizi’s
role in the bounty scheme were confirmed through a dozen interviews that included US and Afghan officials aware of the intelligence and the raids that led to it; his neighbours and friends; and business associates of the middle men arrested on suspicion of involvement.
US intelligence reports named Azizi as a key middleman between the GRU and militants linked to the Taliban who carried out
the attacks. He was among those who collected the cash in Russia, which intelligence files described as multiple payments of “hundreds of thousands of dollars”. Those files were among the materials provided to Congress this week. Through a layered and complex Hawala system — an informal way to transfer money — he delivered it to Afghanistan for the missions, the files say. The transfers were often sliced into smaller amounts and routed through several regional countries before arriving
in Afghanistan, associates of the arrested businessmen said.
Afghan officials said prizes of as much as US$100,000 per killed soldier were offered for American and coalition targets.
Just how the money was dispersed to militants carrying out attacks for the Taliban, and at what level the co-ordination occurred, remains unclear. But officials say the network had grown increasingly ambitious and was in communication with more senior levels in Taliban military ranks to discuss potential targets. About six months ago, Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security, raided the offices of several Hawala businessmen both in Kabul, the capital, and in Kunduz, in the north, who were believed to be associated with the bounty scheme, making more than a dozen arrests.
Russia was initially seen as cooperating with US after the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, as its interests in defeating al-Qaida aligned with those of the United States. But in recent years, as the two powers clashed elsewhere, the Kremlin grew wary of the US presence and moved closer to the Taliban, hedging its bets on who would take power in a post-US Afghanistan.
The Russians also saw an opportunity for payback for the Soviet humiliation in Afghanistan in the 1980s, when the Red Army withdrew after being unable to defeat a US-backed insurgency.
Russia has walked a fine balance in recent years, eager to bloody the American nose but wary of Afghanistan collapsing into a chaos that could spill over its borders. Publicly, Russia has admitted only to information-sharing with the Taliban in fighting the Islamic State in Afghanistan, a common foe.
The US conclusion in 2019 that the Russians were sending bounty money to the Taliban came at a delicate time in the conflict, just as the United States was deep into negotiations with the insurgents over a deal to withdraw the remaining American troops from the country.
Some of the attacks believed to be part of the bounty scheme were carried out around the time the Trump administration was actively reaching out to Russia for cooperation on those peace talks.
The Afghan battlefield is saturated with smaller terrorist groups in addition to the Taliban. Criminal networks, profiteers and terror training experts also freelance their services — often to several groups at the same time.
Azizi, who neighbours and relatives said is in his 40s, thrived in that murky environment. None of those interviewed who know Azizi were surprised when his associates were raided and one of his brothers taken into custody with the half-million dollars in cash.
As one of his friends put it, he had gone from “not even having a blanket” to having multiple houses, fancy cars, and security escorts.