Taliban fighters have claimed that Russia is supplying them with weapons including snipers and heavy machine guns.

America's top general in Afghanistan said earlier this year that he was 'not refuting' reports Moscow was providing support, including weapons, to the militant group.

Kremlin chiefs have previously denied trading with the Taliban. But new footage, obtained by CNN, appears to show fighters in possession of improved weaponry which the militants claim was supplied by Russian government sources.

Moscow has been critical of the United States over its handling of the war in Afghanistan, where the Soviet Union fought a bloody and disastrous war of its own in the 1980s.

America in the 1980s supplied the Mujahideen, parts of which ultimately became the Taliban, with high-tech weapons as they battled the Soviet Union.

Taliban fighters have claimed that Russia is supplying them with weapons including snipers and heavy machine guns

According to CNN, one Taliban faction says it received free weapons over the border from Tajikistan after they were supplied by 'the Russians'.

Another Taliban offshoot said it had seized guns from the mainstream group and that those weapons had originally come from the Russians via Iran.

The group's deputy leader Mullah Abdul Manan Niazi told CNN: 'The Russians are giving them these weapons to fight ISIS in Afghanistan, but they are using them against us too.'

Russia did not comment on the CNN reports but it has previously denied claims they are involved in trading with the Taliban.

In April, General John Nicholson, the top U.S. general in Afghanistan, asserted that Russia might be supplying the Taliban with weapons.

He was asked by a reporter: 'So you are not refuting that [Russia is] sending weapons?'

NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Curtis Scaparrotti, told the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this year he had seen Russian influence expand in multiple regions, including in Afghanistan

And Nicholson replied: 'Oh, no, I am not refuting that.'

At the same time a senior U.S. military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters that intelligence showed that Russia was providing monetary and weapons support to the Taliban, specifically weapons such as machine guns.

Just weeks earlier, General Curtis Scaparrotti, NATO's Supreme Allied Commander who also heads the US military's European Command, said Russia is 'perhaps' supplying the Taliban as they fight US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

He told lawmakers he had seen Russian influence expand in multiple regions, including in Afghanistan.

'I have seen the influence of Russia of late - an increased influence - in terms of association and perhaps even supply to the Taliban,' Scaparrotti told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

He did not elaborate on what kinds of supplies might be headed to the Taliban or how direct Russia's role might be.

Russian officials dismissed the allegation that it may be supplying Taliban insurgents as 'a lie' saying the charge was an attempt by Washington to try to cover up for the failure of its own policies there.

Officials said their limited contacts are aimed at bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table.

Moscow has been critical of the United States over its handling of the war in Afghanistan, where the Soviet Union fought a bloody and disastrous war of its own in the 1980s (file picture)

NATO troops have been fighting in Afghanistan since a US-led invasion in late 2001, following the September 11 attacks.

About 13,000 NATO service members are in Afghanistan - the bulk of them American - under its Resolute Support training mission.

According to US estimates, government forces control less than 60 per cent of Afghanistan, with almost half the country either contested or under control of the insurgents, who are seeking to reimpose Islamic law after their 2001 ouster.

Underlying the insurgents' growing strength, Taliban fighters have captured the strategic district of Sangin in the southern Afghan province of Helmand, officials said on Thursday.

The district was captured after an Afghan officer turned his rifle on sleeping colleagues, killing nine policemen.

The taking of Sangin district, once considered the deadliest battlefield for British and US troops in Afghanistan, marks the culmination of the insurgents' year-long push to expand their footprint in the Taliban heartland of Helmand.

The Taliban effectively control or contest ten of the 14 districts in Helmand, the deadliest province for British and US troops over the past decade and blighted by a huge opium harvest that helps fund the insurgency.

The Pentagon said it would deploy some 300 US Marines earlier this year to Helmand, where American forces engaged in heated combat until they pulled out in 2014.

Taliban officials have told Reuters that the group has had significant contacts with Moscow since at least 2007, adding that Russian involvement did not extend beyond 'moral and political support'.

After more than 15 years of war, US generals say the Afghanistan conflict is stuck in a 'stalemate,' with the Taliban continuing to carry broad regional influence and NATO-backed Afghan security forces struggling to make progress.



