CIA Director Meets Taliban Leader As Deadline For US Evacuation Looms

CIA Director William Burns met Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in Kabul on Monday, according to a U.S. official familiar with the matter.

This marks the highest level meeting between the Biden administration and the Taliban since the group took over in Afghanistan on Aug. 15.

The CIA declined to comment. There was no word on where they met or what they discussed. But the most pressing issue is whether the U.S. airlift operation at the Kabul airport will continue beyond the self-imposed Aug. 31 deadline set by President Biden.

The president says that's still the goal, but has left open the possibility of extending it. The Taliban says the continued U.S. presence would cross a 'red line,' and there would be unspecified consequences.

The U.S. and Baradar have a history.

A joint CIA-Pakistan operation led to Baradar's capture in Pakistan in 2010. He was released from prison in Pakistan in 2018 and then took part in the U.S.-Taliban negotiations in Doha, Qatar.

In February 2020, Baradar and then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo signed an agreement that called for all U.S. troops to be out of Afghanistan by May of this year.

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