Tajikistan and the Russian Scheme to Pay Taliban to Target Americans in Afghanistan

[ad_1] New studies from Insider and Der Spiegel add appreciable element to prior reporting by the New York Occasions that Russia’s army intelligence company, the GRU, spent tens of tens of millions of {dollars} funding terrorist teams in Afghanistan to focus on U.S. and NATO forces.

The scheme, as summarized by Insider, concerned a gemstone buying and selling firm that operated “as a entrance to run a community of Afghan couriers who delivered cash to Taliban fighters and different militant teams.”

Former Afghan and U.S. intelligence officers instructed Insider that this system advanced over time, beginning with the recruitment of property in Afghanistan, adopted by “weapons and ammunition flows to the Taliban by way of neighboring Tajikistan” after which “[f]inally, it led to cash transfers to incentivize rebel assaults on the occupying military.”

Insider’s sources, previously employed by the erstwhile Afghan Republic’s intelligence company, NDS, mentioned that on common, cost for a killed American or coalition solider amounted to $200,000.

This system, run by the GRU’s infamous Unit 29155 – which has been linked to a sequence of bombings in NATO international locations, in addition to the notorious Skripal poisoning incident – featured at the very least three networks in Afghanistan. In keeping with Insider, “Probably the most prolific community, working in northern Afghanistan from a base in Kunduz, was headed by Rahmatullah Azizi, a longtime smuggler whose recruits included his circle of relatives members. They acted as couriers between Unit 29155 and the Taliban.”

Later within the report, Insider acknowledged that “Unit 29155 maintains a ahead working presence at Russia’s 201st Navy Base in Dushanbe.”

The Insider report is price studying in full, however I need to give attention to the Central Asian connection that arguably contributed to this northernmost community’s prominence.

Russia’s 201st Navy Base in Tajikistan is one among its most vital overseas bases, with an estimated 7,000 troops – though that determine is an estimate and invariably impacted by reported redeployments to Ukraine . Truly made up of three installations, the previous Soviet base remained below Russian management after the collapse of the Soviet Union and thru the Tajik Civil Warfare. Moscow’s army presence in Tajikistan, beforehand set to run out in 2014, was prolonged to 2042 in 2013 .

{That a} GRU unit is working out of the bottom is unsurprising.

Among the many people uncovered by the Insider report is a senior Unit 29155 member, Col. Alexey Arkhipov, who the report acknowledged “not solely ran the Azizi courier community but additionally remained intimately concerned with GRU’s intelligence operations in postwar Afghanistan.” Leaked emails and different paperwork attest to his ongoing collaboration with the Taliban, now in energy in Kabul. In a single hand-written memo, the Taliban seem to ask Russia to not permit “the exercise of enemies of the brand new Islamic rule from the territory of Tajikistan” – a reference to former Afghan authorities officers who fled to Tajikistan following the collapse of the Republic in August 2021.

“Arkhipov’s emails verify that the Kremlin is certainly contemplating requests from the Taliban to help with concessions in relation to Tajikistan, together with entry to territories allegedly offering protected haven to opponents of the brand new Islamist regime,” Insider reported.

Relating to Afghanistan, Tajikistan exists in a liminal political house, positioned on the threshold – and Dushanbe has sought to learn from that place. All through the U.S. conflict in Afghanistan, Tajikistan benefited from funding and tools transfers with border safety in thoughts, and but the border by no means appeared to grow to be safer. In keeping with the U.S. Embassy in Tajikistan , “Since 1992, the USA has offered over $330 million in safety sector help to Tajikistan.” A November 2021 truth sheet from the embassy acknowledged that “[l]ast yr alone, U.S. safety help to Tajikistan totaled $11.4 million, making the USA one among Tajikistan’s prime donors.”

On the similar time, as alleged within the Insider report, Russian brokers and their Afghan property have been smuggling weapons throughout the Afghan-Tajik border and utilizing Tajikistan as a waystation for funds, transferred from Russia to Tajikistan (in addition to China and Pakistan) after which on to Afghanistan utilizing the Islamic hawala system of casual cash transfers.

For Russia, the target wasn’t simply giving the USA a bloody nostril in Afghanistan – that was a way to an finish. Douglas London, the CIA’s chief for counterterrorism in South and Southwest Asia from 2016 to 2018 was the one CIA supply who spoke to Insider on the document, and he pointed to the broader goal (emphasis added):

In a sequence of interviews with The Insider, London characterised what the GRU was doing as a “strategic incentives program” geared toward refocusing the Taliban’s guerrilla terrorism towards Individuals. The overriding goal, he mentioned, was to erase the USA’ army and intelligence footprints in Central Asia, a area Russia considers to be inside its personal sphere of affect. This meant driving U.S. and NATO troops out of Afghanistan. This system developed steadily, however finally expanded into proxy warfare as Putin turned more and more hostile to Washington during the last decade.