To terrorists anyone tasked with protecting those they see as targets become themselves targets.
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Have you ever worked at an embassy? If you have you know that there is usually a fairly small contingent of staff that are sent from the home country (ambassador, counsellors, etc.) and a larger number of what are called ‘locally-engaged’ workers. Sometimes these are people who hold dual citizenship or who have been associated with a particular embassy for years and hence are highly trusted.
The plain fact is that no embassy could function economically without the latter. They do a lot of the administrative duties and can deploy their language and cultural skills to help the embassy achieve its goals. They really are essential.
At times, those who toil for a ‘foreign power’ are seen as traitors by some in their home communities. This is particularly true when the nation represented by the diplomats is unpopular or is involved in activities that piss off the locals. Think the US Embassy in Baghdad post 2003 and you’ll see what I mean.
It should come as no surprise, then, that on occasions locally engaged staff are targeted by terrorists. On this day in 2016, 16 Afghan, Nepalese and Indian security guards were killed in a terrorist attack in Kabul on their way to work at the Canadian Embassy to Afghanistan. Both the Taliban and the local Islamic State affiliate claimed the suicide bomber who detonated his load outside their minibus.
On this day in 2016, both the Taliban and ISIS claimed a suicide bomber who killed 16 locally-engaged security guards at the Canadian embassy in Kabul.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the bombing “appalling and cowardly.”
These kinds of jobs are often much higher paying than others in the immediate surroundings. Why should these hard-working people have to die for putting food on the table?
