Washington – CIA Director William Burns met with the de facto Taliban leader in Kabul on Monday, according to a source familiar with the situation, marking the group’s highest-level meeting with the Biden administration. since the fall of the Afghan capital.
The news of the meeting between Burns and Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar comes a week before the August 31 deadline for the U.S. military to complete its evacuation of Americans and Afghan allies from Kabul. About 21,600 people were evacuated from the capital over a 24-hour period Monday and Tuesday, including 12,700 evacuated on 37 military flights, a White House official said.
A U.S. defense official said the military I was waiting for a decision White House Tuesday on whether or not the U.S. will leave Afghanistan before Aug. 31.
So far, the Taliban have allowed U.S. evacuation efforts to continue unhindered, although there have been reports of beatings and injuries on the chaotic perimeter of the airport. U.S. officials have warned that the mass masses could be the target of a terrorist attack by the group known as ISIS-K, which is known to operate in Afghanistan.
A Taliban spokesman told CBS News that expanding operations beyond Aug. 31 would be a “violation” of the U.S. commitment to withdraw. “The answer depends on the decision of our leadership,” the spokesman said.
Baradar, a longtime Taliban official, was arrested by the CIA in a joint operation with the Pakistani intelligence service in 2010 in Karachi. He was released in 2018 after the United States pushed for his release as he began talks with the Taliban. The Washington Post first reported Monday’s meeting with Burns.
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Burns is the first career diplomat to lead the CIA, having served as deputy secretary of state from 2011 to 2014 after spending more than three decades in the State Department. In his memoirs, “The Back Channel” describes the secret bilateral talks he led with Iran during the Obama administration alongside Jake Sullivan, now President Biden’s national security adviser. The talks ended up paving the way for the nuclear deal with Tehran.
In interviews and testimony from Congress, Burns acknowledged that the U.S.’s ability to pick up and act on terrorist threats will diminish after the military withdraws, but that the CIA would maintain a “capability set” to control potential plots. Pentagon and intelligence officials have warned that al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups would likely try to regain the ability to launch attacks on U.S. targets.
On Monday, the State Department said talks with the Taliban had been “operational, tactical … focused largely on our short-term operations and short-term goals,” but did not specify at what level commitments were happening.
The CIA and the National Security Council declined to comment Tuesday.