Pompeo warned Russia against putting bounties on U.S. troops in Afghanistan
WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has warned Russia’s foreign minister against Moscow paying bounties to Taliban-linked militants and other Afghan fighters for killing American service members, U.S. officials said.
Mr. Pompeo’s warning is the first known rebuke from a senior American official to Russia over the bounties program, and it runs counter to President Donald Trump’s insistence the intelligence from U.S. government agencies over the matter is a “hoax.”
The action indicates Mr. Pompeo, who previously served as Mr. Trump’s CIA director, believes the intelligence warranted a stern message.
Mr. Pompeo delivered the warning in a July 13 call with the minister, Sergey Lavrov, choosing to do so during a conversation that, officially, was about an unrelated topic — the possibility of a meeting of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, the U.S. officials said in the past week.
The secretary of state did not explicitly point to the covert bounties scheme organized by a Russian military intelligence unit first reported in late June by The New York Times.
In public, Mr. Pompeo has carefully avoided answering direct questions about U.S. intelligence on the Russian bounties. But late last month in congressional testimony, he said broadly he had raised with Mr. Lavrov “all of the issues” that put U.S. interests at risk.
In the call, Mr. Pompeo made it clear to Mr. Lavrov in language about payouts and red lines the United States was strongly opposed to the program, the official said, adding the secretary of state had been livid about what the intelligence had said about the bounties.
The American officials who spoke about Mr. Pompeo’s call did so on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. Since the intelligence on the bounties became public, the White House has been criticized for inaction.
Intelligence officers put the information about Russia and the possible bounties in the President’s Daily Brief in February, though Mr. Trump has said he was never personally told about it. Mr. Trump rarely reads the written briefing.
Mr. Trump has brushed off past declarations by his own commanders that Russia had been providing weapons and cash to the Taliban for years, but the commanders did not specifically cite any bounty program.