Late last week, The New York Times reported that Russia offered bounty payments to members of the Taliban for killing US-led coalition troops. While the foundational truth of these reports remain unverified, Stipulation can conclude that this story is politically UNBIASED.

Context

According to the Times and others, at least one Russian military intelligence unit paid Taliban militants – or other closely related Islamists – to kill western coalition forces. These coalition forces would include American and British troops. The report, in part, is said to have come from interrogations of Afghan/Taliban militants. The theory has also been supported by the recovery of American cash from a raid on a Taliban base.

The United States has been in a long-standing war with Taliban militants in Afghanistan for nearly two decades. While troop withdrawal negotiations have been ongoing for several years, there is still tense relations between the two sides. This is despite the US and the Taliban reaching a preliminary peace deal earlier this year.

According to US intelligence officials, this is one part of a three-pronged Russian attack on US interests. The use of cyber-attacks, disinformation campaigns, and proxy warfare weakens US capabilities and destabilizes influence both domestically and internationally. As such, officials and politicians believe this report highlights Russia’s continued, yet indirect, attack on the US. Though its’ affects are still inconclusive, such attacks would include Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

While supposedly warnings came as early as 2019, there is still much unexplained about this story. Specifically, Intel officials are unsure how high these alleged bounties came from within the Russian government. Additionally, it is so far unknown if any US or allied troops were actually killed relating to a bounty payment; indiscriminately or targeted.

Still Unverified

According to the Times, there has been disagreement within US intelligence whether the source findings were credible or not. Both Russia and Taliban have explicitly denied these reports.

The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs commented that said report “illustrates the low intellectual abilities of propagandists from American intelligence, who instead of inventing something more reliable have to come up with such nonsense…”A spokesman for the Taliban denounced the reports as “baseless,” and that “[American] lives are secure and we don’t attack them.”

Who Reported It?

Naturally, a report this consequential quickly becomes an internationally newsworthy story. News outlets of all different sizes and scopes have worked to add context and further explore the relevant report. Here is a non-exhaustive list of outlets who either reported a variation of the story or confirmed the original report:

• Reuters
• Washington Post
• USA Today
• NBC News
• Washington Examiner
• Wall Street Journal

Is The Report Biased?

As mentioned earlier, many news media outlets (including Stipulation) has not confirmed the veracity of the underlying report. However, there are a many outlets who have framed the report as if it were true. That is, a plethora of outlets have cited anonymous US Intelligence sources and are treating them as right until otherwise invalidated. Nevertheless, our goal here is to alert you to whether reports have a political bias, and not if they are necessarily true. As such, Stipulation has calculated the report that “Russia offered bounties for killed American troops” to be UNBIASED. The report received an ABS score of 66.813 – solidly not biased.