An investigation has revealed that some members of the British Special Forces unit allegedly targeted Afghan men of fighting age, even when they posed no threat.
A senior officer said he raised concerns with the director of UK special forces, but a “conscious decision” was made to cover it up, Sky News reported.
The officer, who served as assistant chief of staff for operations at UK Special Forces Headquarters in 2011, said he became concerned that data from deliberate detention operations (DDOs), including the number of weapons found compared with the number of enemies killed, “didn’t seem credible”.
He explained that the number of “enemy killed” was strangely higher than the number of weapons recovered and reports suggesting that “detainees repeatedly tried to reach for weapons after being captured” seemed unbelievable.
He told the inquiry’s lawyer: “To be clear, we are talking about war crimes — taking detainees, moving them to a designated location and executing them, while fabricating a false story.”
According to him, despite reporting the matter to the head of Special Forces, instead of legal action, only an order for “reviewing operational procedures” was issued.
The officer said his conscience remained troubled for years, and in 2015 he formally reported his concerns. He emphasised that the issue “was not confined to a small unit” and may have been widespread within the Special Forces.
He added: “I was deeply concerned that innocent people, including children, may have been unlawfully killed.”
Sky News had previously reported in 2023, based on a separate investigation, that evidence had been obtained suggesting up to 80 civilians were killed by British forces in Afghanistan between 2010 and 2013 “in suspicious circumstances”.
At the time, lawyers representing Afghan families, who said their loved ones had been unlawfully killed by the British Army, demanded greater transparency in the investigations that had been launched into possible war crimes.
According to the BBC, British Special Forces have been accused of killing unarmed individuals in suspicious circumstances in Afghanistan between 2010 and 2011.
In 2022, the BBC revealed that a British Special Forces unit had unlawfully killed 54 people during a six-month mission in Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, earlier, Zabihullah Mujahid, chief spokesman for Taliban, had said that Afghanistan seeks compensation for Afghans who “were subjected to oppression and crimes during the occupation”.
He had said the war crimes in Afghanistan were “systematically planned”.
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