CANADA ALERT IN AFGHANISTAN

Plans in place to evacuate embassy

A decade after Canada ended a historic combat mission in Afghanistan, the government is making emergency preparations to get diplomats out of Kabul in case its old foe the Taliban threatens the embassy.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan was advised in March on contingency plans for the Canadian Forces to help evacuate Canada's heavily fortified mission in Kabul, according to a briefing note obtained by the National Post.

Much of the note, acquired through access to information legislation, was redacted before release. But it stresses that most NATO forces are exiting the country in parallel with the U.S. military withdrawal, to be completed by Sept. 1.

It noted that there had been an “uptick in violence” and a lack of progress in talks between the insurgents and Afghan government.

The grim result is readily apparent today, with the Taliban on the offensive throughout Afghanistan and capturing a number of significant cities just in the last several days.

The attacks have raised the spectre of the Islamic fundamentalists returning to power by force. How they would deal in that event with representatives of NATO countries like Canada that battled furiously against Taliban fighters has been little discussed.

A possible assault on the embassy could even become a political issue here, as it did in the United States after the Benghazi attack, observed one outside expert.

A small number of Canadian Forces members are based at the mission in Kabul, and the Department of National Defence (DND) is carefully monitoring developments in the country, said Jessica Lamirande, a spokeswoman.

“While the situation is changing rapidly, with the support of on-the-ground planning and liaison assets, DND is developing contingency plans for a range of scenarios in the event that the (government) requests Canadian Forces assistance,” she said.

National Defence will not disclose specifics of those strategies for security reasons, said Lamirande.

That Canada is now making such plans underscores the ambiguous results of NATO's efforts in Afghanistan generally — and this country's bloody, six-year mission in Kandahar province specifically. The Taliban control more of Afghanistan now than at any time since they were toppled after the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

The security of embassies in conflict zones has been a particularly hot issue since the 2012 attack on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya, noted Christian Leuprecht, a political scientist at the Royal Military College (RMC).

The ambassador and three other Americans were killed in Benghazi, which became a political issue as Republicans tried to blame future presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, secretary of state at the time, for lax security at the facility. The same could happen here, said Leuprecht.

“Especially in an election year and under a minority government, a similar incident in Kabul could possibly bring down the government or affect the outcome of the election, should it coincide with the writ period,” he said. “That's a key consideration and precisely the sort of risk the civil service should be identifying and mitigating.”

Leuprecht noted that other Western missions in Kabul have faced terrorist attacks in the past, including even the American embassy in 2011.

More than a dozen security guards headed for the Canadian embassy in a minibus were killed in a 2016 suicide bombing.

Leuprecht said there are a number of possible scenarios, including an orchestrated attack on one or more embassies or “an unanticipated all-out assault on Kabul and Afghan security forces just collapsing, with some, but minimal, time to evacuate embassy staff.”

That said, the most likely evacuation plan for Canadian diplomats would involve simply shifting staff to the American embassy, said the RMC professor.

“No one else has the ... combat assets in the region to stare down a Taliban attack.”

But Sean Maloney, a history professor at the Royal Military College in Kingston and former adviser to the Canadian military on Afghanistan, said the possibility of the embassy being targeted depends on a number

A SIMILAR INCIDENT IN KABUL COULD POSSIBLY BRING DOWN THE GOVERNMENT.

of unanswered questions.

It's unclear to what extent the various groups commonly dubbed the Taliban are coordinated or directed by sponsors in neighbouring Pakistan, he said, or exactly what political goals they're pursuing. And it is possible they are overextended and in no position to attack the capital.

Signs are also pointing to a repeat of the “war of the commanders” — the multifront conflict that followed the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989 and ultimately led to the Taliban gaining power, said Maloney.

“What relationship do they want to the outside world, if any?” he asked. “Or put another way, what relationship to the world do their backers want them to have, and can that be agreed to among the various elements that make up `The Taliban?'”