The Courier & Advertiser (Fife Edition)
Foreign secretary says he was told Kabul was ‘unlikely’ to fall in 2021
Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab has said UK intelligence indicated Kabul was “unlikely” to fall this year, as he prepared to head to the region around Afghanistan for evacuation talks.
The Cabinet minister indicated yesterday he would visit Pakistan during diplomatic efforts to help rescue those left behind after foreign forces left Kabul.
Mr Raab said he would be departing yesterday following a combative grilling by MPs over the government’s handling of the crisis during an emergency session of the foreign affairs committee.
He said he could not determine how many Afghans were left behind when the RAF departed Afghanistan but admitted they included guards who had secured the British embassy in Kabul.
There was sustained questioning on how the UK failed to predict the speed in which the Afghan government would fall to the Taliban, which ultimately seized Kabul on August 15.
Mr Raab said: “The central assessment that we were operating to, and it was certainly backed up by the JIC (Joint Intelligence Committee) and the military, is that the most likely, the central proposition was that given the troop withdrawal by the end of August, you’d see a steady deterioration from that point and it was unlikely Kabul would fall this year.”
The minister partly blamed an “optimism bias” surrounding the UK’s assumptions when asked by Bob Seely, a Tory MP who served in Afghanistan, why Britain got it “so badly wrong”.
Mr Raab revealed he would be heading “to the region” after the hearing, but declined to say where exactly due to security reasons.
But he went on to indicate he was going to Pakistan during the trip when asked by committee chairman Tom Tugendhat: “Is this your first trip to Pakistan?”
“I’ve been to Pakistan before but not as foreign secretary,” the minister responded.
It is understood his diplomatic efforts will centre on how to get Afghans and any remaining British nationals out of the region through third countries.
The prime minister’s special representative for Afghan transition, Sir Simon Gass, has already travelled to Qatar to meet “senior Taliban representatives” about allowing people to leave Afghanistan.
And MI6 chief Richard Moore has reportedly held talks with the Pakistan military on Afghanistan in recent days.
Mr Raab was unable to say how many Afghans who are vulnerable under Taliban rule because they aided Britain’s efforts in Afghanistan were left behind.
When grilled on the numbers, the minister said: “I can’t give you a definitive answer. I’m not confident with precision to be able to give you a set number, but I am confident that the prime minister is right, that we’ve got the overwhelming number out.”
However, he admitted some of those left behind included Afghans who worked as guards at the British embassy in Kabul.
“We wanted to get some of those embassy guards through but the buses arranged to collect them, to take them to the airport, were not given permission to enter,” he said.
More than 8,000 former Afghan staff and their family members eligible under the Afghan relocations and assistance policy (Arap) were among the 15,000-plus people evacuated by the UK since August 13.
He has said the number of UK nationals left behind is in the “low hundreds”.
Iam confident the prime minister is right, that we’ve got the overwhelming numbers out