The inquest was told the SAS had a golden pass to get away with murder

A former senior British special forces officer has told a public inquiry into alleged war crimes in Afghanistan that the SAS had a “golden opportunity to get away with murder”.

The allegations were published on Wednesday by the Afghanistan Inquiry as part of the release of materials summarizing seven closed hearings with members of the UK Special Forces.

The officer, a former operations chief of staff of the Special Boat Service (SBS) – the UK’s naval special forces – was one of several senior members of the unit who lodged concerns in 2011 that the SAS was hanging up and covering up . them up.

In an email at the time, the officer wrote that the SAS and murder were “regular partners” and described the regiment’s official account of operational killings as “quite unreliable”.

Asked in question during a closed hearing whether he stood by his claim that the SAS’s actions amounted to murder, the officer replied: “Indeed.”

Pressed by investigating counsel in 2011 about his decision not to report his concerns further into the series, he said he regretted his lack of action at the time. He agreed that there had been a “huge failure of leadership” by Britain’s special forces.

The former SBS operations chief of staff was one of several senior officers from the Royal Navy’s special forces unit who gave evidence to the inquiry behind closed doors in 2024.

The investigation, which is examining night raids by the UKSF between 2010 and 2013, follows years of reporting by BBC Panorama into allegations of murder and a cover-up by the SAS.

Only the investigation team and representatives of the Defense Ministry have been allowed to participate in the closed-door hearing. The public, members of the media and lawyers of the bereaved families are not allowed to attend.

The material released Wednesday summarizes testimony from these hearings. Overall, the documents – hundreds of pages in all – paint a picture of the SAS’s arrival in Afghanistan in 2009 and how the SBS hunted down the Taliban.

Senior SBS officers told the inquiry of deep concerns that the SAS, fresh from aggressive, high-tempo operations in Iraq, was being driven by the number of kills – the number of dead they could get in each operation.

Another senior SBS officer who gave evidence was asked whether he stood by his concerns in 2011 that the SAS was carrying out extrajudicial killings.

“I thought and thought that in at least some operations (the SAS) was committing murders,” he said.

A junior SBS officer, who also gave evidence at an interrogation that took place behind closed doors, described an interaction in which a member of the SAS who had recently returned from Afghanistan held a pillow over someone’s head before hitting him with a pistol. Told about being kept.

“I think what shocked me most was not the execution of potential Taliban members, which was certainly wrong and illegal, but it was the age and the methods and, you know, the details of things like pillows “, said the junior officer.

He clarified that some of those killed by the SAS were children, according to the conversations he released. When the investigating lawyer was asked if he meant that some of those killed would have been as young as 16, he replied: “Or 100% younger”.

The junior officer told the inquiry that he feared for his safety if his name would be linked to testimony that the SAS was allegedly killing civilians.

These SBS officers were part of a small group who were privately raising doubts about the authenticity of SAS operational reports coming out of Afghanistan in 2011.

In an email, one of the senior executives, who at the time held a post at SBS headquarters in Poole, wrote to a senior colleague: “If we don’t believe it, no one else will and when the next WikiLeaks Then we will be dragged along with them.”

Having served with SBS operational units in Afghanistan before the arrival of the SAS, two senior officers were in a position to interpret the language in the regiment’s reports while the naval unit took what appeared to be a back seat. Was forced to. Anti-narcotics operations instead of hunting the Taliban.

As well as believing that the SAS may have carried out the killings, he described in his emails what he saw as a cover-up in Afghanistan. The second officer told the inquiry chairman: “Basically, there seems to be a culture of ‘shut up, don’t ask questions’.”

At the time, support staff in Afghanistan were skeptical of the SAS’s accounts of their operations, and did not consider them credible.

But rather than taking the concerns seriously, a reprimand was issued “to ensure that staff officers support people on the ground”, another senior SBS official wrote.

He told the inquiry that in the eyes of the commanding officer of the special forces in Afghanistan, the SAS could do no wrong, and described the lack of accountability for the regiment as “astonishing”.

The documents released on Wednesday also revealed new details about an explosive meeting in Afghanistan in February 2011, during which the SAS’s partner Afghan special forces angrily withdrew their support.

The meeting followed a growing rift between the SAS and Afghan special forces over what Afghans saw as unlawful killings by members of the SAS.

An Afghan officer present at the meeting became so angry that he reportedly even pulled his pistol.

Describing the meeting in a recently released email, the SBS official wrote: “I have never had such a hostile meeting before – actual shouting, hand waving and staring down 9mm barrels at one stage with me – it was all very unpleasant. “

Following intervention by senior members of the UKSF, Afghan units agreed to continue working with the SAS. But this would not be the last time he withdrew his support in protest.

“This is all very damaging,” the SBS executive said at the end of his email.

Additional reporting by Connor McCann