Times of London: Iran Paying Bounty to Kill U.S. Soldiers

The Sunday Times (UK) reported yesterday, based on Taliban sources, that the Iranians are paying bounties to the Taliban to kill American soldiers. (The Times's account is behind a pay wall, but summaries of the story can be found elsewhere  in the press.) We learn that the going rate is $1,000 per dead American and $6,000 for each American vehicle that is destroyed.

This isn’t the first time we’ve heard of Iran paying out rewards for dead Americans. When WikiLeaks released tens of thousands of U.S. military documents earlier this year, a number of intelligence reports pointing to collusion between Iran and the Taliban (as well as al Qaeda) came to light.

One of the WikiLeaks documents was an ISAF report dated February 19, 2005. The report noted that a group of Taliban commanders consisting of “eight main leaders, all of whom travel into [Afghanistan] to recruit soldiers” was expected to orchestrate attacks against U.S. forces in the Helmand and Uruzgan provinces. “This Joint Group currently resides in Iran,” the document notes, and the “Iranian government has offered each member of the group 100,000 Rupees ($1,740) for any [Afghan] soldier killed and 200,000 Rupees ($3,481) for any [Government of Afghanistan] official.”