Kabul Collision: CIA Director Negotiates Secret Deal with Taliban Leader… As we Forecast!
by Fabio Giuseppe Carlo Carisio
As I wrote in previous article the US Army withdrawal from Afghanistan let space to the Intelligence shady action. The geopolitical analysis expressed in my reports on Gospa News and Veterans Today is now confirmed by the real operations on the Asian country conducted by Central Intelligence Agency as highlighted first by Washington Post then by NBC News.
«Facing growing pressure over his looming deadline to leave Afghanistan, President Joe Biden dispatched his spy chief to meet with the Taliban’s de facto leader, according to a senior diplomat in the region and another source familiar with the matter. CIA Director William Burns held a secret meeting with Taliban co-founder and political leader Abdul Ghani Baradar on Monday, the sources said. The meeting was first reported by the Washington Post» reported today NBC.
According to the network, the CIA declined to comment on the meeting, citing the agency’s policy of never discussing the travels and meetings of its director. Follows the full NBC post. News update here
PROFILES OF THE TWO LEADER IN THE MEETING TALIBAN-CIA
Abdul Ghani Baradar (Pashto/Dari: عبدالغنی برادراخوند; born about 1968) is an Afghan militant who was one of the founders of the Taliban in Afghanistan,and the deputy of its first leader, Mohammed Omar. He is known by the honorific Mullah, and Omar nicknamed him ‘Baradar’, which means ‘brother’,[6] or Mullah Brother.[7] Baradar was arrested in Pakistan by Pakistani intelligence forces in early 2010 and was released on 24 October 2018 at the request of the United States. Since his release he has played an increasingly influential role within the Afghan Taliban movement.
Baradar was born in about 1968 in the Weetmak village of Deh Rahwod District in Uruzgan Province of Afghanistan. He is a Durrani Pashtun of the Sadozai tribe which is sub-tribe of Popalzai. He and Mohammed Omar became friends when they were teenagers.
He fought during the 1980s in the Soviet–Afghan War in Kandahar (mainly in the Panjwayi area), serving as Omar’s deputy in a group of Afghan mujahideenagainst the Soviet-backed Afghan government.Omar gave him the nom de guerre ‘Baradar’, which means ‘brother’, because of their close friendship. He later operated a madrassa in Maiwand, Kandahar Province, alongside Omar. According to Western media, Omar and Baradar may be brothers-in-law via marriage to two sisters. In 1994, he was one of four men, including Omar, who founded the Taliban in southern Afghanistan.
During Taliban rule (1996–2001), Baradar held a variety of posts. He was reportedly governor of Herat and Nimruz provinces, and/or the Corps Commander for western Afghanistan. An unclassified U.S. State Department document lists him as the former Deputy Chief of Army Staff and Commander of Central Army Corps, Kabul while Interpol states that he was the Taliban’s Deputy Minister of Defense.
Baradar was arrested by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in late January or early February 2010 in Karachi. Pakistan only confirmed the arrest a week later and Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik denied reports that US agents had been involved in the arrest. According to New York Times reporting soon after the arrest, American intelligence agencies had tipped off Pakistani counter-terror officers about a meeting of militants with a possible link to Baradar, but that it was only after several men had been arrested that they realised one was Baradar himself.
On 25 October 2018, the Taliban confirmed that Pakistan had released Baradar. He was subsequently appointed to be the chief of the Taliban’s diplomatic office in Doha, Qatar. Washington special envoy Zalmay Khalilzad claimed that Baradar was released at the request of the United States.
In February 2020, Baradar signed the Doha Agreement on the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan on behalf of the Taliban. On 17 August 2021, Baradar returned to Afghanistan for the first time since the fall of the original Taliban government in 2001. It was rumoured that Baradar will become the president of Afghanistan following the overthrow of the government of Ashraf Ghani by the Taliban in August 2021.
CIA, Mossad & Talibans in Jihadist’s New Empire to Use Afghanistan against Iran and Russia
William Joseph Burns (born April 4, 1956) is an American diplomat and career ambassador serving as the director of the Central Intelligence Agency since March 19, 2021. He previously served as the United States deputy secretary of state from 2011 to 2014. He retired from the US Foreign Service in 2014 after a 33-year diplomatic career. From 2014 to 2021, he served as president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Burns previously served as Ambassador of the United States to Jordan from 1998 to 2001, Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs from 2001 to 2005, Ambassador of the United States to the Russian Federation from 2005 to 2008, and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs from 2008 to 2011.
In January 2021, President Joe Biden nominated Burns to become the director of the Central Intelligence Agency. He was unanimously confirmed by voice vote on March 18, 2021, sworn in officially as director on March 19, 2021, and ceremonially sworn in by Vice President Kamala Harris on March 23, 2021.
When in April 2021, Biden announced his intention to withdraw all regular U.S. troops from Afghanistan by September 2021, Burns told the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee on April 14, 2021 that “[t]here is a significant risk once the U.S. military and the coalition militaries withdraw” but added that the U.S. would retain “a suite of capabilities.”
On August,11,2021, four days before the falling of Kabul in the hands of Talibans, prime Minister Naftali Bennett met Wednesday with visiting CIA chief William Burns for talks on the situation in the Middle East and specifically Iran, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement. According to Time of Israel, The two discussed ways to broaden and deepen cooperation between Israel and the US in the region, the statement said.
They were joined in the meeting by the head of the Mossad spy agency David Barnea, the incoming head of the National Security Council Eyal Hulata, the prime minister’s military secretary Maj. Gen. Avi Gil, and Bennett’s diplomatic adviser Shimrit Meir.
CIA chief secretly met Taliban leader as Biden faces pressure over Afghan evacuation deadline
First published on NBC News
By Yuliya Talmazan, Ken Dilanian, Richard Engel and Courtney Kube
Facing growing pressure over his looming deadline to leave Afghanistan, President Joe Biden dispatched his spy chief to meet with the Taliban’s de facto leader, according to a senior diplomat in the region and another source familiar with the matter.
CIA Director William Burns held a secret meeting with Taliban co-founder and political leader Abdul Ghani Baradar on Monday, the sources said. The meeting was first reported by the Washington Post. The CIA declined to comment on the meeting, citing the agency’s policy of never discussing the travels and meetings of its director.
The news comes as Biden is set to decide whether to extend his deadline for U.S. troops to withdraw from the country, under growing pressure ahead of a crisis summit with leaders of key allies.AUG. 24, 202104:21
Biden is expected to make the decision on whether to push back the Aug. 31 deadline on Tuesday, according to two U.S. officials, with just a week to go and thousands desperately awaiting evacuation in the wake of the militant group’s rapid takeover of the country.
The president is facing criticism from at home and abroad, as well as mounting calls to delay the withdrawal until more Americans, Afghans and others seeking to flee the militant group can be airlifted out.
Biden will hold an emergency virtual meeting with his Group of Seven counterparts on Tuesday morning, where he is likely to face further pressure to extend the evacuation effort.
But the Taliban have warned any delay would cross a “red line” and threatened consequences for the U.S. The militants control the outside of Kabul airport and have used force to control the chaotic crowds as thousands rush to escape their rule.
There is concern that if Washington tries to change the deadline the Taliban will lash out at Americans and other foreign nationals still in Afghanistan, according to the two U.S. officials.
U.S. military informed the White House that it will take about 3 to 4 days to get the roughly 6,000 troops and the small number of embassy and consular staff out, the officials said. That means they have to start moving the military out by the end of this week if they plan to stick to Biden’s cut-off date for the U.S. forces to withdraw from the country. As more U.S. troops leave, the evacuations will likely slow down, the officials said. For now the pace has accelerated.
In the 24 hours between Aug. 23 and 24, approximately 21,600 people were evacuated from Kabul, according to a White House official — 12,700 evacuees left on 37 U.S. military flights, while another 8,900 people were flown out on 57 coalition flights. Since the airlift began on Aug. 14, the U.S. has evacuated approximately 58,700 people, the official said.
Still, thousands more are desperate to board flights and leave the country as the Taliban continue to consolidate their power, with early reports of violence and repression of nascent resistanceinstilling fear in those left behind.
Many Afghans fear reprisals and a return to a harsh version of Islamic law that the Taliban enforced while in power from 1996 to 2001, in particular the repression of women and freedom of speech.
Biden told reporters Sunday he was considering extending the Aug. 31 deadline, but hoped that it wouldn’t have to come to it. He set the deadline back in early July before the Taliban’s military blitz saw them sweep across the country and take control.
The U.S. will now have to contend with Baradar and other senior Taliban leaders, who are in the process of choosing a new government Baradar is expected to lead, a commander with the militant group told NBC News. Baradar was arrested more than a decade ago in a joint U.S.-Pakistani operation and held for eight years in Pakistan.
He was released from prison in 2018 and served as the Taliban’s chief negotiator in peace talks in Qatar that produced an agreementwith former President Donald Trump’s administration to withdraw U.S. military personnel by May 1 of this year. After he was inaugurated, Biden said the withdrawal would be completed by the 20th anniversary of the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks.
He then moved that forward to Aug. 31 but is now facing pressure from international allies to delay in order to allow more evacuations to take place.
U.K. Defense Secretary Ben Wallace warned on Monday there were just “hours, not weeks” to evacuate vulnerable Afghans. But he told the U.K.’s Sky News on Tuesday that he was doubtful there would be an extension, calling it “unlikely.” “It’s definitely worth us all trying, and we will,” Wallace said.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said Monday France was “concerned” about the Aug. 31 deadline, adding that “additional time is needed to complete ongoing operations,” according to Agence France-Presse.
German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas also said on Monday that G-7 leaders needed to decide whether to remain beyond Aug. 31. “We are working on ways to get people out of the country beyond the end of the military evacuation operation,” Maas was quoted as saying by the German Foreign Office on Twitter. “As bitter as it is, we need to talk to the Taliban. The alternative would be to abandon these people. And we are not willing to do that.”
Biden is also facing pressure at home. House Intel chair Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told reporters after a briefing on Monday that he didn’t believe the evacuation could be completed in the eight days remaining.
“I think it’s possible but I think it’s very unlikely given the number of Americans who still need to be evacuated,” Schiff said, according to Reuters.
An NBC News poll released on Sunday showed just 25 percent of respondents approved of the president’s handling of Afghanistan, while 60 percent disapproved.
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