The Ministry of Defense (MoD) has taken the extraordinary step of accusing the BBC of doing “irresponsible and incorrect” journalism hours before a Panorama documentary that will accuse SAS soldiers of killing cold-blooded Afghan civilians.
As a result of a four-year investigation, the program, to be broadcast on BBC One on Tuesday night, concludes that 54 people were killed in suspicious circumstances by a SAS unit in Helmand province between 2010 and 2011.
Based on British official files, the BBC said there was a pattern of “surprisingly similar reports” of SAS operations known as kill / capture missions, in which one or more Afghan men were shot dead by elite soldiers in night raids.
The detained men were often removed from family groups captured and shot dead 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 squadrons were a ” British war crime “.
At the time, concerns were raised about the pattern, with internal emails describing an incident as the “latest massacre,” prompting a senior special forces official to warn in a secret note that there could be a “policy” deliberate “illegal murder in operation.
But before the broadcast of the program, the Ministry of Defense warned that it could put British soldiers at risk because it “jumps unjustified conclusions” from allegations that according to the department had been the subject of two investigations by the military police , which did not result in any processing.
“Neither investigation found sufficient evidence to prosecute. Insinuating otherwise is irresponsible, incorrect and endangers our brave armed forces personnel, both in the field and in reputation,” the Defense Ministry 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 liquidated in 2017 and closed in 2019, and the Ministry of Defense said no evidence of crime had been found.
The files obtained by the BBC were related to police investigations, and the station said members of the Northmoor team questioned the conclusion reached by the Ministry of Defense that there was no case to answer.
One of the assassinations was a former district governor, Haji Ibrahim, who had worked with the British. The SAS report of the events of the night of November 29-30, 2010 states that Ibrahim was arrested and then sent to assist in the search of a building, where he was shot dead “when he demonstrated an intention hostile with a hand grenade “.
However, his family told the BBC he had his hands tied and that he was summarily killed. 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 had taken place on 15 January, 7 and 16 February and 1 April 2011.
Sources told the BBC that SAS units were competing with each other to get the most deaths during the tour and the unit at the center of the investigation was trying to get a larger corpse count than its predecessor.
In response to one of the reports of the incident, a skeptical operations officer emailed a colleague to describe what he had been told. An Afghan man who had died had “grabbed a grenade from behind a curtain”, but the explosive did not fire, which was “the eighth time this has happened”. Writing the last three words in capital letters, he said, “You can’t invent it.”
Labor said the allegations were disturbing and cast “a dark shadow” over the reputation of the British armed forces. The party asked the ministers to give a full explanation to the parliamentarians.
John Healey, the shadow defense secretary, said his counterpart Ben Wallace “must urgently explain to parliament what steps he will take to verify the truth of these claims and any possible cover-ups.”
Ministers have tried to draw a line in the face of historic prosecutions of members of the armed forces, following allegations that law firms have tried to present vexatious cases against the military.
The Overseas Operations Act 2021 had attempted to introduce a legal presumption against the prosecution of British soldiers for events that had taken place five or more years earlier. But during the passage of the legislation by parliament, ministers admitted that war crimes would be among the crimes excluded from the five-year limit.
The Ministry of Defense said it was willing to contemplate reopening investigations. “The Ministry of Defense is, of course, open to considering any new evidence, there would be no obstruction. But in the absence of that, we strongly oppose this subjective report,” a spokesman said.
Australian special forces were involved in the alleged killings of 39 Afghan civilians, killing prisoners for “bleeding” young soldiers before inventing cover stories and putting weapons to bodies, a judge-led investigation concluded in 2020.
However, the Australians served in a different Afghan province and the Ministry of Defense said no British personnel were people interested in this investigation.