As the security situation in Lebanon deteriorates, the British government is accelerating plans to evacuate its civilians. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office has advised British nationals in the country to leave while commercial flights were still operating. It also said that British nationals should have an evacuation plan, and warned that they should ‘not rely on FCDO being able to evacuate you in an emergency’. It is believed there may still be 10,000 British nationals in Lebanon.
As things stand, most major airlines have now cancelled or suspended services to Beirut-Rafic Hariri International Airport, and many of the remaining flights have sold out. Sir Keir Starmer has said bluntly: ‘Now is the time to leave… leave immediately’.
But the shadow of Operation Pitting, the evacuation from Afghanistan in 2021, hangs over everything
The Defence Secretary John Healey left the Labour party conference in Liverpool early to chair a crisis meeting at the Cabinet Office Briefing Rooms (a so-called ‘Cobra meeting’) to coordinate the government’s response. Ministers, officials, diplomats and senior intelligence personnel were in attendance. The United Kingdom is, in one grim sense, lucky that the crisis is in Lebanon, as it has extensive military and logistical facilities in Cyprus only 150 miles away.
The Sovereign Base Areas of Akrotiri and Dhekelia comprise a British Overseas Territory, and are home to an airbase (at RAF Akrotiri) with the three detachments of the Joint Services Health Unit and British Forces Cyprus under Air Vice-Marshal Peter Squires. There are two resident infantry battalions of around 700 soldiers each, 1st Battalion, The Rifles at Dhekelia and 1st Battalion, Princess of Wales’s Royal Regiment at Episkopi.
An additional 700 troops are being sent to Cyprus along with personnel from the Home Office’s Border Force and the FCDO, and there are also two British vessels in the eastern Mediterranean: Type 45 destroyer HMS Duncan and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary’s landing ship dock RFA Mounts Bay.
We have been here before. In July 2006, Operation Highbrow saw the evacuation of 4,000 British nationals from Lebanon to Cyprus during a previous conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. To circumvent an Israel naval blockade, RAF and Royal Navy helicopters formed an ‘air bridge’ to transport civilians from Beirut to Cyprus, and later, when numbers increased, from Beirut to Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary ships in the Mediterranean.
At that point, there were more British nationals in Lebanon than there are now; equally, however, the Ministry of Defence was able to deploy six vessels to the region, which it cannot do this time. It has also been suggested that an air bridge would be too vulnerable to Hezbollah’s surface-to-air missiles.
Healey has said that the government is ‘ensuring all preparations are in place to support British Nationals should the situation deteriorate’. The armed forces are practised in this kind of operation: as well as Op Highbrow in 2006, there have been evacuations from Libya (2011), Tunisia (2015), Sudan (2023) and Gaza (2023).
But the shadow of Operation Pitting, the evacuation from Afghanistan in 2021, hangs over everything. In the end, an astonishing 5,000 British nationals and up to 10,000 eligible Afghans were airlifted out of Kabul, but around 1,000 Afghans and 100-150 British nationals were left behind. The House of Commons Foreign Affairs published a damning report on the operation, called it a ‘disaster’ and lambasted ‘a fundamental lack of seriousness, grip or leadership at a time of national emergency’.
Lebanon in 2024 is not Afghanistan in 2021, and the United Kingdom is not an active combatant in the current conflict. But we should be under no illusions: the extraction of thousands of civilians from a war zone is a complex and hazardous proposition. The Royal Fleet Auxiliary is under acute pressure, with officers having just ended a three-day strike over pay; the RAF’s 22 Airbus A400M Atlas transport aircraft severely stretched; and one of two Albion-class landing ships in maintenance.
It is reassuring that the government has been developing evacuation plans for some weeks, but this will be a stern test for ministers still finding their feet. There must be no hint of inadequate leadership or confusion at the political level, or any suggestion that available resources have been inadequate. This is not a party political issue, but a measure of whether Whitehall can currently respond to crises. We cannot get this wrong.
