UK special forces had ‘golden pass’ to get away with murder – officer
UK special forces had ‘golden pass’ to kill Afghan civilians – officer
(1 day later)
Military brass had no interest in investigating alleged war crimes by the SAS, an inquiry has heard
British troops viewed all fighting-age men as targets, a former service member said in his testimony
British SAS operatives were given a “golden pass allowing them to get away with murder” in Afghanistan, a former UK Special Forces officer has told a government inquest. Other witnesses described routine executions of unarmed civilians by British forces.
British commandos had a policy of routinely killing civilians during anti-Taliban raids in Afghanistan, a former soldier has told a public inquiry.
The officer’s statement was given behind closed doors to the UK’s Independent Inquiry Relating to Afghanistan earlier this year, and included in a trove of documents published by the inquiry on Tuesday.
The testimonies of seven soldiers and commanders released on Wednesday are part of an investigation into the conduct of the UK special forces, including the SAS, in Helmand province between 2010 and 2013.
The former officer raised concerns about the killing of unarmed civilians in 2011, claiming that the SAS was covering these crimes up. The officer said that higher-ups within UK Special Forces – which comprises the Special Air Service (SAS), the Special Boat Service (SBS), and four other clandestine branches of the British military – had no interest in investigating the killings, and that SAS operatives had essentially been handed a “golden pass allowing them to get away with murder.”
“During these operations it was said that ‘all fighting age males are killed’ on target regardless of the threat they posed, this included those not holding weapons,” a soldier, known only as N1799, told the inquiry.
The Afghanistan Inquiry is probing night raids carried out by British special forces between 2010 and 2013, when the alleged killings took place.
“It was also indicated that ‘fighting age males’ were being executed on target, inside compounds, using a variety of methods after they had been restrained,” the witness added.
A junior officer told the inquest that “all fighting age males” were killed in these raids, regardless of whether they were armed or not. SAS personnel sometimes carried weapons to drop beside dead bodies after the killings in order to make them appear as combatants.
According to N1799, “in one case it was mentioned a pillow was put over the head of an individual before being killed with a pistol.” The witness said he had been “shocked by the age and methods” used to kill Afghans.
Prisoners were sometimes executed after they had been restrained, the witness recounted. “In one case, it was mentioned a pillow was put over the head of an individual before being killed with a pistol,” the document noted.
The witness said the troops used terms such as “flat packing” when describing the alleged executions.
The inquiry is investigating the killings of at least 80 prisoners.
Another former commando said that the special forces had a “golden pass allowing them to get away with murder,” as quoted by the BBC.
”I suppose what shocked me most wasn’t the execution of potential members of the Taliban, which was of course wrong and illegal, but it was more the age and the methods and, you know, the details of things like pillows,” the officer said, noting that some of the victims were “100%” aged 16 or younger.
According to Reuters, none of the soldiers who provided testimony said that they had witnessed the murders themselves.
The officer said that he was afraid for his own safety after testifying.
The inquiry was told that some soldiers had raised concerns about the conduct of their colleagues. According to a testimony cited by the New York Times, a soldier raised a question in an email about whether SAS units were manufacturing scenarios that allowed them to kill Afghan combatants, another officer replied, “these Afghans are so stupid they deserve to die.”
”Basically, there appears to be a culture there of ‘shut up, don't question’,” another officer told the inquiry.
The law firm Leigh Day, which represents the bereaved families, argued last year that there were at least 30 “suspicious incidents” which resulted in the deaths of more than 80 people.
Claims of war crimes committed by British special forces in Afghanistan have surfaced before, with BBC Panorama, the Sunday Times, and other outlets claiming that civilians were routinely killed on night raids. In one case, the American military reportedly had video footage of one massacre, but mysteriously lost the footage when pressed by a British court.
British troops and other Western forces left Afghanistan in 2021, following two decades of Taliban insurgency. The UK lost 457 soldiers during its occupation of Afghanistan.
Late last year, the BBC reported that one of the UK’s most senior generals had withheld from the latest inquiry evidence of soldiers executing handcuffed detainees in Afghanistan.
