US intel officials hold meeting with Taliban 2 months after al-Zawahiri's killing: Report

In a major development, senior US intelligence officials held an in-person meeting with a Taliban leader nearly two months after the Biden forces killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. According to CNN sources, Central Intelligence Agency Deputy Director David Cohen, State Department’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, Tom West and Taliban's head of intelligence, Abdul Haq Wasiq, met on Saturday and discussed a wide range of issues including measures to counter terrorism on Afghanistan soil.

Officials familiar with the development told the American broadcast that Cohen lashed out at the Taliban for giving protection to terrorist al-Zawahiri on their soil. Cohen told his counterpart that Afghanistan has violated Trump's brokered Dohar agreement which promised that the Taliban would not harbour terrorists if US forces withdrew from Afghanistan, which they did in August 2021. Also, American officials accused the Taliban of harbouring a Haqqani network and claimed they were aware of Zawahiri’s whereabouts -- a claim that the Taliban denied multiple times.

Taliban refuted claims of recovering Ayman al-Zawahiri's body in Afghanistan

It is to mention that Al-Qaeda's al-Zawahiri was killed on July 31 in a drone strike carried out by the US on a residential house in the Sherpoor area of Kabul city. In a televised video address, POTUS Biden confirmed the killing of the top terrorist in Kabul. According to Biden, justice was delivered to the victims as he was also involved in the September 11 (9/11) attack where nearly 3,000 people were killed in a series of four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks. "At my direction, the United States successfully conducted an airstrike in Kabul, Afghanistan that killed the emir of al-Qaida: Ayman al-Zawahiri. Justice has been delivered and this terrorist leader is no more," Biden had said in a video address. Soon after Biden's statement, Taliban government spokesperson Mujahid confirmed the attack was carried out on July 31 and added that the nature of the incident found that "the strike was carried out by an American drone". However, a month later, the Taliban refuted the reports of the recovery of Zawahri's body and added they were investigating all angles. 

Image: AP