CIA Chief William Burns Met With Senior Taliban Figure in Kabul

CIA Director William Burns met secretly with the Taliban’s top figure in Kabul on Monday amid a chaotic U.S. effort to evacuate American citizens and Afghans allied with the U.S. in advance of an Aug. 31 deadline, U.S. officials said. Details of the meeting weren’t immediately available, but the CIA chief’s crisis diplomacy comes as the Biden administration is considering whether to extend the evacuation of tens of thousands of people from Kabul airport beyond the deadline for a U.S. troop withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Taliban on Monday rejected any extension. The Central Intelligence Agency declined to comment on Mr. Burns’s meeting with Taliban leader Abdul Ghani Baradar… (Excerpts from the Wall Street Journal)