CIA director met with Taliban leader in Kabul on Monday amid evacuation efforts
CNN
CIA Director William J. Burns met face-to-face with the top Taliban leader in Kabul on Monday, according to two US officials, as the US continues airlifting American citizens and its Afghan allies out of Afghanistan by a looming August 31 deadline.
The Biden administration has been in regular contact with Taliban officials throughout the course of the evacuation process, both on the ground in Afghanistan and in Doha, Qatar. But the covert meeting, first reported Tuesday by The Washington Post, between Burns and Taliban co-founder and deputy leader Abdul Ghani Baradar amounts to the highest-level direct exchange of views since the militant group took control of the capital, a US official briefed on the matter told CNN.
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