<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN"> <HTML><HEAD> <META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <META content="MSHTML 5.50.4611.1300" name=GENERATOR> <STYLE></STYLE> </HEAD> <BODY bgColor=#ffffff> <DIV>US turns to the Taliban<BR>By Syed Saleem Shahzad <BR><BR>KARACHI - Such is the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan, compounded by the return to the country of a large number of former Afghan communist refugees, that United States and Pakistani intelligence officials have met with Taliban leaders in an effort to devise a political solution to prevent the country from being further ripped apart. <BR><BR>According to a Pakistani jihadi leader who played a role in setting up the communication, the meeting took place recently between representatives of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and Taliban leaders at the Pakistan Air Force base of Samungli, near Quetta. <BR></DIV> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2><</FONT><A href="http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/EF14Ag01.html">http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/EF14Ag01.html</A><FONT face=Arial size=2>></FONT></DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>DP</DIV></BODY></HTML>