CIA director secretly meets the head of Taliban in Kabul, reports WaPo

United States (US) President Joe Biden sent off America’s top spy to meet the head of the Taliban on Monday, reported The Washington Post.

This high-level diplomatic encounter comes prior to the deadline of August 31 set to airlift Americans and their allies out of Afghanistan.

Biden warned that the evacuation was going to be “hard and painful” and much could still go wrong. US troops might stay beyond an August 31 deadline to oversee the evacuation, he said.

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director William Burns met Taliban Leader Abdul Ghani Baradar in Kabul on Monday as the Biden administration continues efforts to evacuate US citizens and other allies amid chaos at the airport in Kabul.

SCOOP: CIA Director Bill Burns held a secret meeting with Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar in Kabul on Monday, the highest-level face-to-face encounter between the Taliban and Biden administration since the militants seized the Afghan capital 1/ https://t.co/gwGXGpdLWS

— John Hudson (@John_Hudson) August 24, 2021

“Biden’s spymaster is also his most seasoned diplomat. For Baradar, playing counterpart to a CIA director comes with a tinge of irony 11 years after the spy agency arrested him in a joint CIA-Pakistani operation that put him in prison for eight years,” writes journalist John Hudson.

It's quite the tete-a-tete. Biden’s spymaster is also his most seasoned diplomat. For Baradar, playing counterpart to a CIA director comes with a tinge of irony 11 years after the spy agency arrested him in a joint CIA-Pakistani operation that put him in prison for 8 years 2/

— John Hudson (@John_Hudson) August 24, 2021

However, the CIA declined to comment on the secret meeting.

The CIA declined to comment on the secret meeting (as it always does when asked about the director's foreign travel) but the Burns-Baradar chat likely involved the looming deadline for the US to conclude its evacuation. Also a great chance for Burns to size up the Taliban chief

— John Hudson (@John_Hudson) August 24, 2021