US Central Intelligence Agency chief William Burns held a secret meeting in Kabul with Taliban co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Washington Post reported Tuesday.
The Monday meeting, which if confirmed will have been the highest-level encounter between the Islamist group and the Biden administration since the militants’ return to power, came as efforts to evacuate thousands of people from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan became increasingly urgent.
Burns is one of US President Joe Biden’s most experienced diplomats; while Baradar, who headed the Taliban’s political office in Qatar, is one of the top leaders in the regime that has taken power in Kabul.
The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan on August 15, two weeks before the US was set to complete its troop withdrawal after a costly two-decade war. This forced Afghan President Ashraf Ghani to flee the country to the UAE.
CIA Director William J. Burns held a secret meeting in Kabul on Monday with Baradar in the highest-level face-to-face encounter between the Taliban and the Biden administration since the militants seized the Afghan capital, the Washington Post reported, citing unnamed US officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity,
Joe Biden’s decision to dispatch his top spy, a veteran of the foreign service, comes amid a frantic effort to evacuate people from Kabul international airport in what the president has called “one of the largest, most difficult airlifts in history,” the paper said.
The CIA declined to comment on the Taliban meeting but the discussions likely involved the impending August 31 deadline for the US military to conclude its airlift of US citizens and Afghan allies, it added.
The Biden administration is under pressure from some allies to keep US forces in the country beyond August 31 deadline in order to assist the evacuation of tens of thousands of citizens of the US and Western countries as well as Afghan allies desperate to escape Taliban rule.
However, a Taliban spokesman on Monday warned that there will be “consequences” if the US and UK sought an extension to the August 31 deadline for the US-led troop withdrawal from the war-torn country.
The pace of the evacuations have accelerated. In the 24 hours between Aug. 23 and 24, about 21,600 people were evacuated from Kabul, according to a White House official — 12,700 evacuees left on 37 U.S. military flights, while another 8,900 people were flown out on 57 coalition flights. Since the airlift began on Aug. 14, the U.S. has evacuated approximately 58,700 people, the official said.
Baradar was arrested more than a decade ago in a joint U.S.-Pakistani operation and held for eight years in Pakistan.
He was released from prison in 2018 and served as the Taliban’s chief negotiator in peace talks in Qatar that produced an agreement with former President Donald Trump’s administration to withdraw U.S. military personnel by May 1 of this year. After he was inaugurated, Biden said the withdrawal would be completed by the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks.
