⏩ Secret meeting: CIA chief talks to Taliban’s top political leader in Kabul as evacuations soar; Biden will honor Aug. 31 deadline to complete flights out.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. military on Tuesday pulled off its biggest day of evacuation flights from Afghanistan since the operation began. But deadly violence that has blocked many desperate evacuees from entering Kabul’s airport persisted, and the Taliban demanded anew that the evacuation end as scheduled on Aug. 31.
President Biden has been considering whether to extend his self-imposed deadline for completing the airlift, taking into account the continued security threats, the Taliban’s resistance to an extension and the prospect that not all Americans and at-risk Afghan allies can be evacuated by next Tuesday.
At a news conference in Kabul, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Tuesday his group will accept “no extensions” of the deadline.
Amid the tense operation to get people out of the country, CIA Director William Burns secretly swooped into Kabul on Monday to meet with the Taliban’s top political leader, a U.S. official told the Associated Press.
About 21,600 people were flown safely out of Talibanheld Afghanistan in the 24hour period that ended early Tuesday, the White House said. That compares with about 16,000 the previous day.
Thirty-seven U.S. military flights — 32 C-17s and 5 C-130s — carried about 12,700 evacuees. An additional 8,900 people flew out aboard 57 flights by U.S. allies.
Pentagon chief spokesman John Kirby said Monday the faster pace of evacuation was partly due to coordination with Taliban commanders on getting evacuees into the airport.
“Thus far, and going forward, it does require constant coordination and deconfliction with the Taliban,” Kirby said. “What we’ve seen is, this deconfliction has worked well in terms of allowing access and flow as well as reducing the overall size of the crowds just outside the airport.”
CIA Director Burns and Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban’s top political leader, secretly met in Kabul on Monday as the evacuations continued. The Washington Post first reported Burns’ meeting. The U.S. official later confirmed the meeting for the AP.
The senior U.S. military commander at the Kabul airport, Rear Adm. Peter Vasely, has been communicating daily with Taliban commanders in an effort to facilitate the evacuation President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said Monday that talks with the Taliban were continuing as the administration looks for additional ways to safely move more Americans and others into the Kabul airport by the end-of-August deadline.