The Taliban are holding discussions with Afghan leaders and officials to form a government in the war-torn land. On Wednesday, a senior leader of a powerful Taliban faction, who was once jailed and whose group has been listed by the US as a terrorist network, met former Afghanistan president Hamid Karzai.
Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, a senior official in the ousted government, met Anas Haqqani as part of preliminary meetings that a spokesman for Karzai said would facilitate eventual negotiations with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the top Taliban political leader.
The US branded the Haqqani network a terrorist group in 2012, and its involvement in a future government could trigger international sanctions. The Haqqani Network is an important faction of the Taliban, who captured the capital, Kabul, on Sunday.
The Taliban have pledged to form an inclusive, Islamic government, although skeptics point to its past record of intolerance for those not adhering to its extreme interpretations of Islam.