Dominic Raab has claimed no one saw the swift Taliban takeover in Afghanistan “coming”, as he suggested the UK government would have taken action earlier if they had.
The frank admission came as the foreign secretary also said he would not have taken a holiday overseas in “retrospect” after the rapid fall of Kabul to the insurgents over the weekend.
“We’ve monitored this very carefully, but the truth is across the world people were caught by surprise,” he told Sky News amid criticism of the government’s strategy.
“I haven’t spoken to an international interlocutor, including countries in the region, over the last week, who hasn’t been surprised”.
He added: “We saw a very swift change in the dynamics and of course this has been part and parcel of the withdrawal of Western troops, but it’s also been the way and approach of the Taliban, and of course it’s been a test for the Afghan security forces.
“All of those factors have been very fluid, but no one saw this coming — of course we would have taken action if we had.”
Echoing comments from yesterday following the end of a third emergency Cobra meeting of senior UK ministers, including Boris Johnson, he added: “We were all caught by surprise by the speed, pace and scale of the Taliban takeover.
It comes after the US president Joe Biden told the American public he stood “squarely behind” his decision to withdraw troops from Afghanistan after 20 years in the region, but also admitted the Taliban takeover “did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated”.
On the rapid collapse of the country’s US-supported government, Mr Biden claimed that in many cases, the Afghan civilian and military forces simply “gave up” rather than resisting a takeover by the insurgents.
The foreign secretary also suggested a situation update he received on Tuesday morning showed the situation at Kabul international airport was “stabilising” following scenes of chaos yesterday, as thousands attempted to flee the country following the insurgent takeover.
“There’s been a surge of UK and US troops,” he said. “The situation is stabilising, but we’re monitoring it very careful”.
The cabinet minister suggested around 2,000 British nationals had contacted the Foreign Office from the middle eastern country as he said there was “always a risk” some people could be left behind if the situation deteriorates.
He added: “We have made real progress, we had 150 British nationals come out on Sunday, over the last week we have also had 289 of those Afghan nationals who have served the UK so loyally in Afghanistan, and we expect over the next 24 hours to have 350 more both British nationals and Afghan nationals who have worked for us coming out.
“So the situation is stabilising, but obviously we are monitoring it very carefully.
“I do think that the airport is more stable today than it was yesterday, and we need to make sure that we consolidate that in the days ahead.”
Addressing criticism of his overseas holiday as the crisis unfolded, he said “everyone was caught off-guard by the pace, scale of the Taliban takeover”, but stressed he was engaged in Cobra meetings and speaking to foreign counterparts “on an hour-by-hour basis”.
“I left as soon as the situation deteriorated and demanded it,” he added. “We’ve been monitoring the situation in Afghanistan since the 2020 Doha agreement.
“We didn’t predict we would be doing this on this scale because of the Taliban takeover, but look in retrospect of course I wouldn’t have gone on holiday if I had known.”
A British holidaymaker told the Daily Telegraph that Mr Raab was relaxing on a beach on the Greek island of Crete on the day the Afghan capital was seized. “It was definitely him,” the source told the newspaper. “I’m not political and obviously accept everyone is allowed a holiday. But the foreign secretary shouldn’t be on the beach on the very day Afghanistan is imploding.”
