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A former high-ranking UK Special Forces officer has revealed to a public inquiry that allegations of war crimes involving SAS troops were not passed on to the military police because of worries that such an investigation might disrupt ongoing operations and damage troop morale. At the time, the officer was the second most senior in special forces and explained that part of the hesitation stemmed from the fact that some of the evidence originated from a competing special forces unit.
As a result, the military police remained unaware for several years of serious concerns raised within special forces about the SAS allegedly conducting extrajudicial killings and falsifying reports. This information emerged during confidential proceedings held by the Independent Inquiry into events in Afghanistan. The inquiry focuses on claims that the SAS committed war crimes between 2010 and 2013, with accusations including the killing of children and civilians. Although these testimonies were given in 2024, the inquiry only recently released a summary of the evidence.
Despite the gravity of the allegations, the director of UK Special Forces in 2011 chose not to escalate the matter to the Royal Military Police. Instead, an internal review was ordered to assess the tactics employed by the SAS. This decision was contentious because British military commanders have a legal duty to notify military police if there are suspicions of war crimes by personnel under their command. The inquiry revealed that the review was conducted by an officer closely associated with the SAS unit under scrutiny and was signed off by that unit’s commanding officer. The investigation lasted only a week and concluded there was no evidence of criminal behavior.
The former chief of staff, identified only as N2252 in the inquiry, believed the director’s choice was based on concerns that a military police probe would be lengthy and interfere with the SAS’s high-tempo missions against Taliban forces. N2252 suggested the internal review was seen as a quicker way to address problems and serve as a warning to those involved. Testimony summarized by the inquiry indicated that senior officers at UK Special Forces headquarters had serious worries about potential unlawful conduct by the SAS as early as spring 2011. These concerns were fueled by whistleblower reports and troubling accounts from Afghanistan, describing incidents where detainees were killed and patrols reported more fatalities than the number of weapons recovered at scenes, a red flag for unlawful killings.
The inquiry also noted complaints from Afghan special forces, who on multiple occasions refused to participate in joint operations with the SAS out of anger over suspected civilian killings. N2252 stated that reporting these issues to the Royal Military Police in 2011 would have disrupted critical SAS efforts focused on targeting Taliban bombmakers. He explained, “You would take the sub-unit out, you would conduct the investigation and they would be thinking about the investigation and not on planning the next operation.”
N2252 further testified that bringing strict scrutiny to the SAS’s activities risked damaging trust within UK Special Forces, as questioning soldiers’ accounts could be perceived as a message that commanders did not believe them. Another witness, a senior officer known as N1788, criticized the SAS’s operational methods and testified that problems should have been apparent to commanders in Afghanistan. However, N1788 claimed he was unaware of any rumors or complaints involving extra-judicial killings or falsifying evidence. This claim was challenged during the inquiry by lawyers highlighting testimony from other senior officers who contradicted him, including one who recalled N1788 asking if “the ‘m-word’ was relevant,” referring to murder.
A third witness, a UK Special Forces officer operating in Afghanistan identified as N889, reflected on his earlier judgment, admitting he may have been too willing to accept SAS operational reports at face value. He said, “I totally accept, you know, all these years later looking back that perhaps one should have taken a slight harder view. I maybe naively read this stuff, believed it and carried on.”
Read the full article from The BBC here: Read More
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