Authorities in London suspended a formal response on Friday to a reported accusation by a senior Afghan bureaucrat that the British introduce an impostor posing as a high Taliban chief into the presidential palace in Kabul to meet President Hamid Karzai.
News of the awkward ruse emerged earlier this week in an article in The New York Times saying that a man identify himself as Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour, one of the most senior commanders in the Taliban movement, had held three meetings with NATO and Afghan officials, heartening hopes of a negotiated resolution to the nine-year-old war.
The fake Taliban leader smooth met with President Karzai, after being flown to Kabul on a NATO plane and usher into the presidential palace, officials said told The New York Times.
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