The Biden administration gave the Taliban terror group a "green light" to seize control of Afghanistan's capital city, Kabul, in mid-August 2021, setting the stage for the terror group to retake control of the country amid America's botched withdrawal, the Washington Free Beacon has learned.
Zalmay Khalilzad, the former U.S. special representative for Afghanistan reconciliation, said in an interview obtained by the Free Beacon that U.S. military leaders rejected a Taliban offer to have the United States provide security for Kabul during an August 15, 2021, meeting with Taliban leaders in Qatar, which came as American officials were scrambling to pull troops and personnel out of the country. This decision was seen as a "green light" for the Taliban to take control of the city.
Khalilzad's disclosures, which are previously unreported, were made during closed-door testimony conducted by the House Foreign Affairs Committee as part of its years-long investigation into the Biden administration's botched Afghanistan evacuation. A transcript of Khalilzad's interview, which was conducted in November 2023, was released in full exclusively to the Free Beacon.
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