Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.com) -- The American TV channel CNN reported that the US intelligence services revealed information confirming that Iran offered financial rewards to Taliban militants for attacks on US and NATO troops in Afghanistan. The channel presented this information based on its sources at the Pentagon.

As noted, Iran made payments to the Taliban for at least 6 attacks committed in 2019, including the terrorist attack of the Seti Haqqani suicide bomber near the Bagram airbase on 11 December 2019 (2 civilians were killed and more than 70 people were injured, including 4 employees of the US mission in Afghanistan).

This is the second time that Taliban has been accused of receiving money for the murders of the US military. Earlier in June 2020, The New York Times, citing its sources, reported that payments to the Taliban for operations against the United States were made by the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (formerly the GRU).

Commenting on the reports about the payments of Iran to the Taliban, the press secretary of Afghanistan President S. Siddiki called on the countries of the region not to support the Taliban. He stressed that one of the important points of the peace process is that the Taliban are no longer used as a proxy group.

Iranian Embassy in Kabul rejected reports of payments, stating that Iran does not intend to resolve its disputes with the United States on the territory of Afghanistan. The official representative of "Taliban" Z. Mujahid also categorically rejected receiving money from Iran, noting that the Taliban did not need to be convinced if they poured help from any country to fulfill their obligations.

By publishing this message, CNN tried to link this news with the assassination in Iraq of the commander of the Al-Quds Special Forces of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps of the Islamic Republic of Iran K. Suleimani. As noted by CNN, after familiarizing himself with the materials about the ties between Iran and the Haqqani Network (a close ally of the Taliban), US President Donald Trump took a tough stance towards Tehran. In this vein, CNN sources cite Iran’s ties to the Taliban as part of an argument for the strike to kill General K. Suleimani.

In general, experts believe that the release of this news into the information field can be viewed in the context of the United States’ desire to induce its European partners to support Washington’s initiative to impose new sanctions against Iran by intensifying discussions in the political-forming and expert-analytical circles of the West about Tehran’s destructive actions against the United States and their allies.