SAS had golden pass to get away with murder, inquiry told

A former senior UK Particular Forces officer has informed a public inquiry into alleged conflict crimes in Afghanistan that the SAS had a “golden go permitting them to get away with homicide”.

The accusation was revealed by the Afghanistan Inquiry on Wednesday as a part of a launch of fabric summarising seven closed hearings with members of UK Particular Forces.

The officer, a former operations chief of workers for the Particular Boat Service (SBS) – the UK’s naval particular forces – was one in every of a number of senior members of the unit who registered issues again in 2011 that the SAS seemed to be finishing up executions and overlaying them up.

In a single e-mail from the time, the officer wrote that the SAS and homicide have been “common bedfellows” and described the regiment’s official descriptions of operational killings as “fairly unbelievable”.

Requested by the inquiry in the course of the closed hearings whether or not he stood by his assertion that the SAS’s actions amounted to homicide, the officer replied: “Certainly.”

Pressed by the inquiry counsel about his determination to not report his issues additional up the chain of command in 2011, he stated he regretted his lack of motion on the time. He agreed that there had been a “huge failure of management” by UK Particular Forces.

The previous SBS operations chief of workers was one in every of a number of senior officers from the Royal Navy’s particular forces unit who gave proof to the inquiry behind closed doorways in 2024.

The inquiry, which is inspecting night time raids by UKSF between 2010 and 2013, follows years of reporting by PJ Panorama into allegations of homicide and canopy up by the SAS.

Solely the inquiry staff and representatives from the Ministry of Defence have been allowed to attend the closed hearings. The general public, members of the media, and attorneys for the bereaved households will not be allowed to be current.

The fabric launched on Wednesday summarises the testimony from these hearings. Taken collectively, the paperwork – totalling a whole lot of pages – paint an image of the SAS’s arrival in Afghanistan in 2009 and the way in which through which it took over looking the Taliban from the SBS.

Senior SBS officers informed the inquiry of deep issues that the SAS, recent from aggressive, high-tempo operations in Iraq, was being pushed by kill counts – the variety of lifeless they may obtain in every operation.

One other senior SBS officer who gave proof was requested whether or not he stood by his issues in 2011 that the SAS was finishing up extra-judicial killings.

“I believed and assume that on at the very least some operations [the SAS] was finishing up murders,” he stated.

A junior SBS officer who additionally gave proof to the inquiry behind closed doorways described a dialog through which a member of the SAS who had not too long ago returned from Afghanistan informed him a couple of pillow being put over the top of somebody earlier than they have been killed with a pistol.

“I suppose what shocked me most wasn’t the execution of potential members of the Taliban, which was after all flawed and unlawful, but it surely was extra the age and the strategies and, you already know, the main points of issues like pillows,” the junior officer stated.

He clarified that a few of these killed by the SAS had been youngsters, in response to the dialog he relayed. Requested by the inquiry counsel if he meant a few of these killed can be as younger as 16, he replied: “Or youthful 100%”.

The junior officer informed the inquiry that he feared for his security ought to his identify be linked to testimony that the SAS had been allegedly murdering civilians.

These SBS officers have been a part of a small group that was privately elevating doubts again in 2011 in regards to the veracity of SAS operational experiences getting back from Afghanistan.

In a single e-mail, one of many senior officers, who held a publish on the SBS headquarters in Poole on the time, wrote to a senior colleague: “If we do not consider this, then nobody else will and when the subsequent WikiLeaks happens then we can be dragged down with them.”

The 2 senior officers have been ready to interpret the language within the regiment’s experiences, having served with SBS operational items in Afghanistan previous to the arrival of the SAS, when the naval unit was pressured to take what it noticed as a again seat, pursuing anti-narcotics operations moderately than looking the Taliban.

In addition to believing that the SAS might have dedicated murders, they described of their emails what they seen as a cover-up in Afghanistan. The second officer informed the inquiry chair: “Mainly, there seems to be a tradition there of ‘shut up, do not query’.”

On the time, help workers in Afghanistan have been sceptical in regards to the SAS’s accounts of their operations, judging them not credible.

However moderately than taking the issues critically, a reprimand had been issued “to make sure that the workers officers help the fellows on the bottom”, one other senior SBS officer wrote.

He informed the inquiry that within the eyes of the Particular Forces’ commanding officer in Afghanistan, the SAS may do no flawed, and described the dearth of accountability for the regiment as “astonishing”.

The paperwork launched on Wednesday additionally reveal new particulars about an explosive assembly in Afghanistan in February 2011, throughout which the Afghan particular forces that partnered the SAS angrily withdrew their help.

The assembly adopted a rising rift between the SAS and the Afghan particular forces over what the Afghans noticed as illegal killings by members of the SAS.

One Afghan officer current on the assembly was so incensed that he reportedly reached for his pistol.

Describing the assembly in a newly launched e-mail, the SBS officer wrote: “I’ve by no means had such a hostile assembly earlier than – real shouting, arm waving and with me staring down a 9mm barrel at one stage – all fairly disagreeable.”

After intervention from senior members of UKSF, the Afghan items agreed to proceed to working alongside the SAS. However it could not be the final time they withdrew their help in protest.

“That is all very damaging,” the SBS officer concluded his e-mail.

Extra reporting by Conor McCann