The Ministry of Defense (MoD) has taken the extraordinary step of accusing the BBC of engaging in “irresponsible, incorrect” journalism hours before a Panorama documentary will accuse SAS soldiers of murdering Afghan civilians in cold blood.
The product of a four-year investigation, the programme, due to be broadcast on BBC One on Tuesday night, concluded that 54 people were killed in suspicious circumstances by a single SAS unit in Helmand province between 2010 and 2011.
Based on official British files, the BBC said there was a pattern of “strikingly similar reports” of SAS operations, known as kill/capture missions, in which an Afghan or men were shot dead by elite soldiers in night raids.
Detained men were often taken from captured family groups and shot after they were said to have unexpectedly produced a hand grenade or AK47 rifle, prompting the program to question whether the activities of the SAS units constituted a “British war crime”.
Concerns were raised about the pattern at the time, with internal emails describing one incident as “the latest massacre”, prompting a senior special forces officer to warn in a classified memo that there could be a “deliberate policy” of extrajudicial killing in operation .
But before the show aired, the Ministry of Defense warned it could put British soldiers at risk by “jumping to unwarranted conclusions” from the allegations, which the department says were the subject of two military police investigations that led to no prosecution.
“Neither investigation found sufficient evidence to prosecute. Insinuations to the contrary are irresponsible, incorrect and put our brave members of the armed forces at risk, both in the field and in reputation,” the MoD said.
In 2014, military police launched Operation Northmoor, an investigation into allegations of more than 600 alleged crimes by British forces in Afghanistan, including the killing of civilians by the SAS. It was closed in 2017 and closed in 2019, and the Ministry of Defense said no evidence of criminality had been found.
The files obtained by the BBC relate to police investigations and the broadcaster said members of the Northmoor team disputed the conclusion reached by the Ministry of Defense that there was no case to answer.
One of those killed was former district governor Haji Ibrahim, who worked with the British. The SAS report on the events of the night of 29/30 November 2010 stated that Ibrahim was detained and then sent to help search a building – where he was shot “when he demonstrated hostile intent by brandishing a handgun grenade”.
However, his family told the BBC that his hands were tied and he was killed in haste. His son described having to remove the plastic handcuffs from his father’s wrists before the family could bury his body.
The BBC noted that similar incidents occurred on 15 January, 7 and 16 February and 1 April.
Sources told the BBC that SAS units competed with each other to achieve the most kills during the tour and the unit at the heart of the investigation was trying to achieve a higher body count than its predecessor.
In response to one of the incident reports, a skeptical operations officer emailed a colleague to describe what he had been told. The slain Afghan had “grabbed a grenade from behind a curtain” but the explosive failed to detonate, “the eighth time this has happened”. Capitalizing the last three words, he said, “You couldn’t make it up.”
Labor said the allegations were disturbing and cast a “dark shadow” on the reputation of Britain’s armed forces. The party called on the ministers to give a full explanation to the MPs.
John Healy, the shadow defense secretary, said his colleague Ben Wallace “urgently needs to explain to Parliament what action he will take to investigate the truth of these allegations and any possible cover-up”.
Ministers sought to draw a line under historic prosecutions of members of the armed forces after allegations that law firms tried to bring defamation cases against the military.
The Overseas Operations Act 2021 sought to introduce a statutory presumption against the prosecution of British soldiers for events that occurred five or more years ago. But as the legislation was being put through parliament, ministers admitted that war crimes would be among the offenses excluded from the five-year limit.
The Ministry of Defense said it was ready to consider reopening the investigations. “The Ministry of Defense is of course open to considering any new evidence, there will be no obstruction. But in the absence of that, we strongly object to this subjective reporting,” a spokesperson said.
Australian special forces were involved in the alleged killings of 39 Afghan civilians, killing prisoners to “bloody” junior soldiers before making up cover stories and planting weapons in the bodies, a judge-led inquiry concluded in 2020.
However, the Australians served in another Afghan province and the Ministry of Defense said no British personnel were of interest to this investigation.
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