US officials meet the Taliban first time after Al-Zawahiri's murder
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The deputy director of the CIA and the top State Department official responsible for Afghanistan are revealed to have met with the Taliban in Qatar.
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The Taliban flag.
Senior Biden administration officials met in person with the Taliban on Saturday, as revealed by US officials to CNN. This would mark the first time they meet since Al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al-Zawahiri was killed in a US drone strike in Afghanistan.
The deputy director of the CIA and the top State Department official responsible for Afghanistan met with the Taliban delegation in Doha, Qatar. The delegation included Abdul Haq Wasiq, the Taliban's head of intelligence.
After Al-Zawahiri was killed in a drone strike, Washington accused the Taliban of “clear and blatant violation of the Doha agreement" which was brokered by the Trump administration. The deal stipulates that the Taliban would not harbor terrorists if the US withdraws from Afghanistan.
Taliban officials have condemned the killing of Al-Zawahiri.
The US continued to engage with the Taliban, in addition to negotiating with the US to release US citizen Mark Frerichs.
CIA Deputy Director David Cohen and Wasiq met on Saturday.
Three weeks ago, Frerichs was released after more than 2 years in captivity with help from Qatar. Administration officials said they spent months negotiating with the Taliban to release the prisoner.
Diplomatic sources spoke to Al Mayadeen in August, revealing that Al-Zawahiri was not killed the way Washington said he was killed, indicating that the Al-Qaeda chief was killed as a result of a mysterious explosion that was not and cannot be disclosed. US President Joe Biden claimed that there were no US boots on the ground in Afghanistan at the time of the attack.
However, Washington claims that its forces studied the construction of the Al-Qaeda leader's home, finalizing a plan using a detailed model of his safehouse in Afghanistan and presenting it to Biden on July 1. The strike was carried out using a non-explosive version of Hellfire, the R9X, which deploys a series of knife-like blades from its fuselage and shreds its target. The "flying ginsu" missiles have been used several times by the United States to kill other targets in Washington's scope.
By the end of August, the Taliban reported that they have not yet found the body of Al-Zawahiri, and that investigation was still underway.
Read more: How exactly was Al-Qaeda's Zawahiri killed?
