EXCLUSIVE: A UK SAS unit is believed to have executed over 50 unarmed Afghan men and children and then placed weapons on their dead bodies to justify the killings, according to a recent BBC investigation. These mirror the horrific war crimes of Australia’s own SAS unit and the decorated veteran Ben Roberts-Smith, who was allegedly involved in the murder of six unarmed Afghans. Nour Ahmad reports.
A recent BBC Panorama investigation has uncovered evidence that a British SAS unit may have murdered 54 detainees and unarmed people during a six-month operation in Afghanistan between 2010 and 2011.
The hour-long documentary even revealed that Special Forces planted weapons on the bodies of Afghans they had shot dead to make it seem like they were an imminent threat. These war crimes against civilians, some as young as 15-years-old, were witnessed by military insiders and those who served with the SAS.
The supposed objective of the SAS between 2009 and 2014 was to conduct raids on suspected Taliban targets and to arrest key insurgency leaders and those involved in the bomb-making networks. However, the UN declared that these raids, which were mostly carried out at night, had resulted in the death of hundreds of unarmed civilians, including women and children.
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Now, the BBC’s four-year long investigation into what happened in the Helmand province of Afghanistan has yielded disturbing results and uncovered the real intent behind this death squad.
The death squad would have their first taste of blood during a night raid near Gereshk in Central Helmand in November 2010. The SAS tried to spin a story that their victim Haji Ibrahim, a former district governor, had simply been detained. However, Panorama obtained confidential internal files from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) that stated the man was “shot and killed…when he demonstrated hostile intent by brandishing a hand grenade.”
Haji Ibrahim was a former district governor who had worked alongside the British (Image: Supplied / BBC)
To add fuel to the fire, Ibrahim’s family revealed to Panorama that his hands were bound before he was executed and that his son had to cut the plastic handcuffs off his father’s wrist in order to bury him.
Panorama’s internal documents revealed that suspicions first arose when the number of dead people recovered from the scenes exceeded the amount of weapons recovered. Additionally, SAS had repeatedly written in their operational accounts of the necessity of killing detainees with weapons, even though detainees are routinely searched for weapons after they surrender.
This came to a head when the Special Forces headquarters identified that, in the span of 18 weeks, over 10 detainees had been shot at close range and killed by the SAS unit after surrendering.
A senior officer who worked at Special Forces HQ told Panorama that he knew something was wrong.
“Too many people were being killed on night raids and the explanations didn’t make any sense. Once somebody is detained, they shouldn’t end up dead,” the senior officer said.
The Royal Military Police (RMP) was clueless about any of the headquarters’ evidence until four years later in 2015. At the time, the RMP was busy conducting “Operation Northmoor” – a wide-scale investigation into over 600 alleged offences by the British forces in Afghanistan. The government eventually shut down the investigation in 2017 without charging anyone but investigators expressed to Panorama that this was a strategic move to conceal the truth.
It seems Operation Northmoor was not the only investigation where higher-ups tried to conceal the truth, as the newly discovered crimes by the UK Special forces were also kept under wraps.
The programme reported that senior figures in the UK Special forces, including General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith, knew about these alleged murders and chose not to disclose evidence during a murder inquiry. The general then proceeded to let the squadron redeploy to Afghanistan at the end of 2012 despite knowing the atrocities they had committed.
General Sir Mark Carrleton-Smith stepped down as the UK’s Chief of the General Staff last month (Image: Supplied / Wikipedia)
Military investigators even wanted to charge one SAS man with murder but the case was dropped due to a lack of evidence. Carleton-Smith declined to comment on the matter and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) similarly declined to comment for legal reasons but stated that this was not an admission of guilt.
Following the BBC investigation, UK defence minister James Heapy hinted that the government is considering a further inquiry or review of the 54 allegedly suspicious killings. The minister also referenced the actions of our very own SAS, as an official inquiry in 2020 found that the Australian SAS murdered 39 Afghan civilians between 2009 and 2013.
There are disturbing similarities between the crimes of the UK and Australian SAS, in what seems to be a concerted effort to slaughter Muslims. The crimes, which were allegedly carried out by 25 perpetrators, also involved planting weapons on the bodies of the victims and covering up evidence.
At the center of it all was former Australian SAS soldier Ben Roberts-Smith. Roberts-Smith is currently suing Channel Nine for defamation over a series of 2018 articles that claimed he had killed, or ordered the execution of, six Afghan men during his deployment.
His defamation trial has, ironically, aired out even more of the Victoria Cross recipient’s dirty laundry.
Ben Roberts-Smith receiving the Victoria Cross in 2011, the highest and most prestigious award of the British honours system (Image: Supplied / Wikipedia)
Late last year during the defamation hearing, the court heard that Roberts-Smith’s ex-wife and a family friend found six USB sticks buried in the family backyard. These sticks contained classified information from the operation and pushed the notion that the SAS veteran deliberately withheld information from the investigation.
In February, Robert-Smith’s ex-wife claimed in court that he told her to lie about his extra-marital affair in her testimony or she would lose her children. Then, a few months later, he was accused of assaulting his affair partner by giving her a black eye and taking pictures of her naked body while she was unconscious.
An elite soldier also testified in March that Robert-Smith’s once said that he “wanted to choke a man to death with his bare hands” and “watch the life drain out his eyes” in Afghanistan.
Another elite soldier claimed that the decorated veteran punched him in the face after a mission and threatened to “f*** [him] up” if he complained.
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The cover up of the Australian SAS’s alleged crimes is shocking to say the least. Nonetheless, while the alleged crimes by the British SAS unit may have been covered up by senior figures in the UK Special Forces, it appears that there are others who want the truth to come out.
The former head of the British armed forces, General Lord Richards, said that he would order a thorough investigation into the alleged unlawful killings if he was still in charge. Lord Richards, who was the chief of the defence staff when the alleged killings occurred, said he was confident that the current chief Admiral Radakin would conduct an investigation.
However, even if a thorough investigation takes place, it is unlikely the UK government will be held accountable from a legal standpoint due to new time limits. Last year, a law was conveniently introduced that shields the UK government from compensation claims if the harm by operations overseas occurred more than six years ago.
The West is no stranger to these brutal acts of genocide overseas. One only needs to take a look at America’s war crimes in Vietnam and Iraq, Australia’s war crimes in Afghanistan and now these shocking crimes by the UK in Afghanistan to come to that conclusion.
Is this a sign that war crimes committed by the West are becoming too widespread? Too normalised?
How can the victim’s families rest easy knowing that the soldiers who killed their loved ones in cold blood are being hailed as heroes back home?
Since when has the Australian Army been in the business of running death squads carrying out extra-judicial murders? About time the politicians and senior military officers responsible are held to account