The head of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) secretly met the leader of the Taliban in Kabul on Monday, BBC reports.

At the same time, neither the Taliban nor the CIA would confirm the reported meeting between William Burns and Mullah Baradar.

If confirmed, this would be the highest-level contact between the US and the Taliban since the militants took Kabul on 15 August, prompting the internationally backed Afghan government to flee.

About 5,800 US troops are currently guarding Kabul airport as thousands of foreign nationals and Afghans try to leave the country, as on Tuesday, August 24, the Taliban said no more Afghans would be allowed to leave the country, nor would the deadline for the US withdrawal be extended.

What is known about the Taliban leader Mullah Baradar

Mullah Baradar is one of the four founders of the Taliban. He was captured during the U.S.-Pakistani operation in 2010, after which he spent eight years in a Pakistani prison, from where he was released at the request of the United States in 2018.

Since 2019, Baradar has been heading the Taliban political office in Qatar. In February 2020, he signed the Doha Agreement on the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops.

The Western press considers him not only a representative of the "moderate" camp, but also the most public face of the radical movement. He became the first leader of the movement to directly contact the U.S. President after a telephone conversation with Donald Trump in 2020.

In his youth, Baradar fought on the side of the mujahideen against the troops of the pro-Soviet government. After the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 1996, he was considered an “architect” of the Taliban's military victories. At the time the U.S. overthrew the regime, he Deputy Minister of Defense.