Kashmir Digits

CIA Director William Burns held a secret meeting with Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar on Monday in Kabul.

This marks the first top-level face-to-face meeting Taliban and the U.S administration ever since the outfit captured Kabul.

The CIA declined to comment on the Taliban meeting, but the discussions are likely to have involved an impending Aug. 31 deadline for the U.S. military to conclude its airlift of U.S. citizens and Afghan allies.

The Biden administration is thought to be under pressure to keep its troops in Kabul beyond the August 31 deadline, to aid evacuation.

However, a Taliban spokesman warned that the United States would be crossing a “red line” if it kept troops beyond the 31st, which he said would trigger unspecified “consequences.

For Baradar, playing the role of counterpart to a CIA director comes with a tinge of irony 11 years. The spy agency arrested him in a joint CIA-Pakistani operation that put him in prison for eight years.