Top Taliban officials, during secret meetings with the US officials in 1998, discussed assassinating or expelling Osama bin Laden in response to Al Qaida’s deadly bombings of American embassies in Africa, according to State Department documents, CNN has reported. The newly-declassified documents, posted on Thursday on the National Archives website, provide a fascinating glimpse into US diplomacy exerted on Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban a regime officially unrecognised by Washington—nearly three years before the September 11, 2001, Al Qaida attacks on the United States. According to the documents, the deputy chief of mission at the US embassy in Pakistan, Alan Eastham Jr, met with Wakil Ahmed, a close aide to Taliban leader Mullah Omar, in November and December 1998. That was just months after the August Al Qaida attacks that killed more than 200 people at the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Full Story
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