Testimony from the ongoing public inquiry into extrajudicial killings perpetrated in Afghanistan by the Special Air Service (SAS) has revealed that the former director of the special forces and commanders tried to cover up concerns about war crimes and suppressed evidence, resulting in even more killings taking place.
The inquiry, chaired by Lord Justice Haddon-Cove, was opened in 2023 to investigate allegations of unlawful SAS killings in Afghanistan between 2010 and 2013, after legal challenges by two families of victims killed during SAS night raids, and following investigations by The Sunday Times and the BBC’s Panorama programme. The inquiry has heard damning evidence of war crimes, of efforts by troops to cover up crime scenes and by senior officers to conceal documentary evidence of these crimes.
A whistleblower, identified only as N1466, gave evidence at the inquiry in secret last year. Transcripts of his testimony were published on 1 December. N1466 had contact with the most senior SAS commanders and is the highest ranking officer to testify that evidence of war crimes was suppressed by the SAS chain of command.
N1466 testified that he received evidence of killings in February 2011, which he passed on to the director of the special forces. However, the director and others did not in turn hand this over to the military police and instead initiated a cover-up. The evidence N1466 received indicated a sharp rise in the ratio of killings to weapons recovered from SAS raids. In one raid nine Afghans were killed and only three rifles recovered. There was also evidence that weapons were planted to make it look as though civilians were armed and photographic evidence that suggested victims were shot at close range while they slept.
N1466 stated that if these crimes had been investigated and the perpetrators stopped, they could have prevented further killings. The officer made references to other crimes that took place after he had first raised concerns including an incident during a night raid in the village of Shesh Aba, Nimruz province in 2012, in which a family that included two toddlers were shot in their beds while they slept. N1466 testified that when he raised further concerns of war crimes and warned that failure to own up to these crimes would tarnish the reputation of the special forces, the director decided to suppress the evidence and instead ordered a review of tactics, techniques and procedures to avoid external scrutiny and make it look as though they were doing something.
The officer left the special forces for a brief period and then returned in 2014, to discover that the killings had continued. He testified that in 2015 he had raised his concerns to the military police and complained that he was ‘part of an organisation which allowed rogue elements to act as they did outside the law’. He had cited an instance during one raid in which SAS troops fired at a mosquito net and when they opened the mosquito net they found only women and children inside – the soldier who carried out the shooting was then given an award to make the killing look legitimate.
This testimony reveals that war crimes perpetrated by the SAS in Afghanistan were known at the very top and that when senior officers raised concerns, the chain of command ensured they were not investigated. The testimony of N1466 also affirms that this allowed SAS troops to continue killing civilians with impunity. Throughout the public inquiry, the evidence has backed up allegations that the British special forces had a policy to kill ‘fighting-aged males on target, even when they did not pose a threat’. Recently published testimony further confirms that women and children were among the victims.
Coalition forces occupied Afghanistan for 20 years in the interests of western imperialism. This inquiry was only called begrudgingly after the legal action by the victims’ families and the journalistic investigations that brought these allegations to light. This latest evidence confirms that the murder of civilians by British special forces was sanctioned at all levels, that any concerns raised from within the ranks were silenced and that the responsibility for these murders goes right to the top of the chain.
