Our dilemma over whether and when to close the embassy was becoming pressing….Move too early and we would risk bringing the whole edifice down….Move too late, and we could put our people at unacceptably high risk of being killed or taken hostage by the Taliban, by ISKP or by other extremists….We just did not know what the Taliban’s plans would be when they made their attempt to take Kabul. They had not fully honoured the commitments they had made to the Americans in the Doha Agreement. We had little knowledge of how decisions were made within the Taliban movement.
Thursday 5 August 2021
Edited extract from Kabul: Final Call by Laurie Bristow.