CIA director secretly met with Taliban leader in Kabul

08/24/2021 8:57 AM

• Clarín.com

• World

Updated 08/24/2021 9:03 AM

CIA director

William Burns held a confidential meeting in Kabul on Monday

with Taliban co-founder Abdul Ghani Baradar,

The Washington Post

reported Tuesday

.

It is the highest-level meeting to date between the United States and the fundamentalist regime since its return to power.

The decision by US President Joe Biden to send Burns, often portrayed as his most experienced diplomat, to Afghanistan

illustrates the severity of the crisis

for his government, which is evacuating thousands of Americans and Afghans against the clock.

CIA Director William Burns.

Photo: AP

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who headed the Taliban's political office in Qatar, is the

new strongman of the regime

that has taken power in Kabul.

The Washington Post

did not reveal the content of the talks, but it is likely that they revolved around the

delay of evacuations from the airport

in the Afghan capital, where thousands of people terrified by the return to power of the Islamists wait to get on a plane to leave. from the country.

The Americans stepped up evacuation efforts on Tuesday following warnings from the Taliban that they would no longer tolerate these operations after a week.

A

virtual G7 summit on

Tuesday will also address the issue.  

Biden has received express requests in recent hours from various allied governments not to complete the troop withdrawal on schedule, in an attempt to buy time to complete evacuations before handing over control of Kabul entirely to the Taliban.

US forces are key to the security of the airport, the epicenter of these transfers, but for now the US president has stuck to the plan.

The situation in Afghanistan will be

the only point in a meeting of G7 leaders

called urgently on Tuesday.

Washington estimates that, since August 14, it has evacuated or

facilitated the transfer of 58,700 people to other countries

.

In the last 24 hours, the evacuation of 21,600 people has been managed, of which 12,700 correspond to the operations of 37 US military planes, according to White House sources.

Taliban leaders have vowed to restore security and have tried to project an image of restraint, but

many Afghans are skeptical

and rush to leave the country, causing chaos at Kabul's international airport.

Amid scattered reports, it has been

difficult to determine the extent of the abuses

and whether they reflect Taliban leaders saying one thing and doing another, or whether fighters on the ground are taking the law into their own hands.

With information from the AFP and AP agencies 

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