Talks, Deception, and Terror: The Taliban Subsumed Under Al Qaeda's Strategic Umbrella

"There has been an argument suggesting that the international community-particularly the United States-should engage with the Taliban to hold them accountable and ensure they do not return to the same path they followed before 9/11: providing safe sanctuaries to Al Qaeda and other international terrorist groups. Advocates of such a policy often assume that the United States had no engagement with the Taliban prior to 9/11."

"A declassified U.S. State Department document detailing these interactions shows that the Department alone conducted more than 30 in-person meetings with the Taliban in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Germany, and the United States. Notably, just two days after the U.S. missile strikes on Khost Province in response to the 1998 embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, a phone call was arranged between the Director for Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh in the Bureau of South Asian Affairs and Mullah Omar."

"The declassified document highlights a meeting on September 18, 1996, when the Political Officer of the U.S. Embassy in Pakistan met with Mullah Jalil, then the Taliban's liaison with the ISI and later appointed as the group's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. This meeting took place just days before the Taliban's takeover of Kabul. In it, Mullah Jalil explicitly stated that "the Taliban do not support terrorism and would not provide refuge to bin Laden." What unfolded after the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, however, directly contradicted that assurance."

More than 30 in-person meetings occurred between U.S. State Department officials and Taliban representatives in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Germany, and the United States during the 1990s. Two days after U.S. missile strikes on Khost Province in response to the 1998 embassy bombings, a phone call took place between the Director for Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh in the Bureau of South Asian Affairs and Mullah Omar, during which Mullah Omar insisted that negotiations should continue through U.S. and Afghan embassies in Pakistan. A September 18, 1996 meeting involved a U.S. Political Officer and Mullah Jalil, who stated that the Taliban did not support terrorism and would not provide refuge to bin Laden. Subsequent events after the Taliban takeover of Kabul contradicted that assurance. Another record notes a meeting on January 16, 1997.

Read at The Cipher Brief