It has been 10 years since a small team of Canadian soldiers executed a historical mission you’ve probably never heard of, doing something never done before, and for which the team has never been recognized.
Operation Lobe, specifically the sixth rotation, was an operation that happened far from Canadians’ gaze and in the shadow of the Benghazi attack in 2012 when a U.S. ambassador and several American diplomats were killed by terrorists.
The mission was to protect Canadian interests and diplomats in Libya after the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.
It was expected to be a dangerous, yet predictable deployment before chaos erupted and the soldiers were forced to conduct the longest land-based evacuation by Canadian Armed Forces serving diplomatic missions, by soldiers untrained in this realm. They were outgunned, outnumbered and underequipped.
A small team of just 18, many of whom were support personnel, had been deployed to protect the Canadian embassy and its staff, but ended up living in near conditions of a civil war.
Sgt. Stephen Cruickshank, now retired, was no stranger to danger. He had completed three tours in Afghanistan before he was deployed to Libya and expected this particular mission to go relatively as planned.
“It’s always dangerous. And as professionals in that space, you’re vigilant all the time, everywhere. But we lived in the environment, we shopped and we assimilated with life in Tripoli. As the geopolitical situation on the ground started to change, the risk went up big time once factions started feuding with each other,” said Cruickshank.
They were heavily outnumbered by the militias and emerging terrorist groups on the streets.
“There was very real incoming threats. I’m not necessarily going to suggest it was direct, but we were in the line of an approaching civil war,” said now-retired Capt. Andrew Gough.
Gough escaped an attempted kidnapping on day two of this deployment and remembers how quickly it turned bad.
“I recall very specific moments where we had to gather everyone from the embassy and hardpoint or put us in a location where we would all be safe. This did not just happen one time. We spent entire afternoons finding a place that had adequate protection against rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs),” shared Gough.
“We had a couple of attempted kidnappings, there was a Tunisian diplomat who was kidnapped and he disappeared for weeks. And then there was another one,” shared Task Force Commander Doug Henderson, who classified this deployment as “by far the most dangerous,” in his experience.
“We were sent into a situation that went from what we were trained for and what we were equipped for to …. It just spiraled so quickly down that the enemy force or the Libyan forces, they had tanks, they had heavy machine guns and aircraft guns, which they used on a regular basis against each other. And we had rifles and pistols to protect the embassy and the embassy staff. So, we were not prepared from an equipment point of view to do that type of job.”
It became clear that the Canadian embassy had to be evacuated, but it took close to a month before it actually happened.
“Our intelligence picture was shaping up and we were saying, ‘Things are going to are getting bad. It’s going to get dirty if the Americans are gone. There aren’t many other embassies still here. That means that we’re a target. We’ve become more and more of a bigger target,’ but the embassy guys, they just didn’t seem to want to report that to their headquarters. And I don’t know why. And, well, it was a lot of it was careerism. They were afraid for their careers because to close an embassy is a big deal,” shared Henderson.
The embassy remained open and a new rotation of soldiers was on its way on July 14, 2014. But they never arrived.
“We had already moved from our original accommodations to temporary accommodations because our replacements were coming that day,” explained Gough. “They’re in Ottawa, they’re in the airport, and they’re waiting to get on a plane to come to Tripoli to begin the handover process for us to go home.”
However, the Tripoli airport has been nearly destroyed. “Airplanes are engulfed in flames. The runways were damaged. The terminal was a war [zone],” Gough added.
They were trapped. America quickly evacuated its embassy but the Canadians stayed for several more days.
“The risk was extremely high. We were alone. We were heavily outgunned. There was not very many of us. So, yeah, there was fear there,” said Cruickshank. “There was hot rounds whistling through the compound, sizzling and cooking. Close enough that I could feel them. So any change of angle and it could have been any one of us with without question.”
A video, taken by the task force’s physician, shows rounds of gunfire landing just inches from where she stood at the compound.
Finally, they got the order they were waiting for: to evacuate the diplomatic mission from Tripoli, Libya to the diplomatic mission in Tunisia.
The only way out was an 800-kilometre drive to Tunis, Tunisia through contested terrain, governed by feuding militias and where diplomats were a big target for kidnappers.
“It’s the longest ground evacuation ever conducted in the Armed Forces. And it was done, not by special forces unit, but by a group of trained police protection operators and support staff that were not trained and equipped to do that,” explained Cruickshank.
They had to work quickly and covertly, burning classified documents, destroying ammunition they couldn’t bring and loading up armoured vehicles and a few cargo vans secretly to carry an entire embassy to safety. It came not a minute too soon.
“I watched an RPG go right by the window at the embassy as we were executing the evacuation,” said Gough.
“Within half an hour of our leaving, the Misrata, who were the militia from the east and were the main instigators to the fighting in Tripoli at that time. They opened fire with their artillery and essentially took out the little town over and killed some people and injured them,” explained Henderson.
“People were being targeted and attacked other close protection teams. The British team was attacked on that road. So you could imagine where tensions were at,” said Gough.
They hit many obstacles on the long and dangerous journey. Their convoy got into a crash resulting in an altercation and a roadside payoff, they had escorts by competing militias with arms aimed at the convoy, delays and difficulties at the border, but after 14 hours of tense, adrenaline-fueled driving, they made it safety.
Task force members want recognition from the Canadian Armed Forces
“I know for myself and the rest of the team, we’ve never felt so much relief ever in my life have. I felt that much depth of adrenaline. I could never replicate it. But as far as what the military does, I guess that’s it. A captain from the Tunisian border met us and shook our hands when we crossed and I was grateful to see him. But that was the extent of any things that I have ever received from the Canadian Armed Forces,” said Gough.
“It was successful. We came home. We brought our charges home safe and sound. That was our mission,” added Henderson.
“I think that the members of that team, the close protection team, the docs, (intelligence team), the support staff did something that I’ll still say to this day as extraordinary. And at the end of that successful mission, it felt like we were left behind,” Cruickshank said.
Details of the operation, and specifically the sixth rotation and the evacuation, weren’t shared with the media.
The operation itself isn’t even listed as a Canadian Armed Forces operation and despite all the citations and accolades received by rotation six team members for other work, the evacuation hasn’t been recognized.
Gough, Cruickshank and Henderson are hoping that changes.
“With the way the world was going at that time, with the ISIS threat emerging, I’m not sure we were a priority. But we can be a priority now and we can have another look at this. We can do what’s fair and what’s right and. Do something for these members that did something extraordinary for us,” said Gough.
“Something could be done, something should be done,” agreed Cruickshank. “It would be a great gesture because there are some people on the task force that are hurting. I might be one of them. And I care enough to talk about it and i’ll continue to talk about it until I think that justice has been done.”
Gough said many of those involved in the sixth rotation of Operation Lobe have struggled with mental health issues since returning to Canada.
“What we were able to accomplish, and I do believe that the lack of recognition for some of them doing something that was extraordinary has certainly contributed to the sanctuary trauma and their mental health injury. I’m not saying that the recognition is going to fix them, us, or me, but I do believe that it is right and it is fair to acknowledge the members of rotation six for doing something that they needed us to do,” said Gough.
“Right now, the only real important thing would be to have the Canadian Armed Forces operational mission list include our mission operation,” said Henderson.
“It wasn’t a typical mission package. It was made up of military policemen, medical people, logistics people, intelligence people, a signaler. And we were doing jobs that we’re not typical of our training.”
The Department of National Defence says that honours have been awarded for those involved in Operation Lobe but couldn’t provide any evidence of the 2014 evacuation being recognized.
A spokesperson adds, “There is a five-year limit for nominating individuals for Canadian Armed Forces honours in relation to the service it is meant to recognize. Therefore, no further honours will be awarded in relation to Operation Lobe.”
“It would be profound and very powerful to take a fresh look at this, look at who did what in the accomplishment of that team, in that mission, and go, okay, we need to revisit this. And there’s plenty of things going around the five-year limit and all that stuff is true, but it’s not true. There’s processes for waivers that I know have happened as recently as this year with other units. If they want to do something, they can. And it would be a great service to everybody that served on that mission. I’ll never forget it,” said Cruickshank.
Conservative Deputy Leader Melissa Lantsman has made a promise to rectify this.
“We see you. We hear you recognize the commitment and sacrifice of your team and soon there will be a government that does so officially,” Lantsman promised in a social media video, addressing Gough.
It’s not clear what that recognition could look like. CityNews reached out to Lanstman’s office several times over several weeks and was told she is not available for an interview. Her office did not provide any additional comments.
With files from Meredith Bond
