Newly released files raise further questions about how senior British Special Air Service officers handled allegations of war crimes in Afghanistan.
British soldiers conduct a helicopter borne operation in Afghanistan, in November 2011. (Sgt Wes Calder RLC / MOD / Wikimedia Commons / Open Government License)
By Richard Norton-Taylor
Declassified UK
An initial internal review into reports of war crimes committed by SAS soldiers in Afghanistan was dismissed in just one day, newly declassified documents have revealed.
The file provides further evidence that senior special forces officers willfully ignored persistent reports that elite British troops were executing unarmed Afghans.
It is among a batch of heavily redacted witness statements and transcripts released on May 29, the latest from an ongoing judge-led inquiry into the killing of 80 people during SAS counter-terrorism raids in Afghanistan between 2010 and 2013.
The inquiry, which began in 2023, was forced on a reluctant Ministry of Defence after sustained legal battles and media investigations brought credible claims that special forces had committed cold-blooded murder, planted weapons on innocent civilians, and deleted incriminating documents from computers.
Many of the files, evidence and testimony from the inquiry which is heard in both closed and open are regularly released to the public. However, closed-session files which are published are redacted or provided in summary.
The release files were heavily redacted and included evidence from the chief of staff to the director of Britain’s special forces in 2010 and 2011, identified only by a cipher, N2252.
He said he worked closely with the then-director of special forces, General Jacko Page, who also has not been named by the inquiry. The identity of all special forces named in private hearings of the inquiry has been suppressed.
N2252 was told about allegations that more bodies than weapons were found after SAS operations and raised them with his colleagues.
The inquiry has already heard how, after an operation in February 2011 in which eight people were killed, including a 15-year old boy Mohammad Taher, N2252 wrote to the special forces senior legal adviser, N2108, alerting him to yet another one of “more bodies than weapons.”
Soon afterwards, in an operation called Objective Tyburn, N2252 emailed the legal adviser: “4 EKIA (enemy killed in action) – 2 weapons recovered.”
The evidence released on Friday also shows how senior Special Forces officers were extremely reluctant to pass the growing reports of unlawful actions by the SAS to the military police.
For years, they dismissed the growing evidence of the execution of unarmed Afghan civilians as “rumours.”
Fight Over Evidence
The inquiry was established under Lord Justice Haddon-Cave, after mounting evidence in press reports and evidence by a high-ranking Special Forces officer who decided to blow the whistle of serious criminal activities by SAS troops.
The whistleblower said SAS soldiers he commanded had committed war crimes by murdering prisoners in Afghanistan, telling the Royal Military Police that a “cancer had infected” an SAS squadron.
The whistle-blower’s devastating statement was placed in a safe at the headquarters of the Special Boat Service (SBS) — the naval equivalent of the SAS — by then head of the SBS Colonel Gwyn Jenkins.
Last year, General Jenkins, a Royal Marine, was appointed the First Sea Lord, the head of the navy.
It is unsurprising that the Ministry of Defence has persistently objected to the inquiry’s attempts to reveal more evidence it has been hearing. The inquiry has insisted the personal security of individual Special Forces soldiers who took part in operations in Afghanistan — and whistleblowers — must be protected.
But there is growing evidence — manifested by the delays in releasing even the latest redacted evidence — that the ministry is attempting to block proposals to release information solely on the grounds that secrecy is needed to protect the reputation of the SAS and its operations from further scrutiny and embarrassment.
Richard Norton-Taylor was The Guardian’s defence correspondent and its security editor for three decades and is the author of several books, most recently The State of Secrecy.
This article is from Declassified UK.
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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