Taliban allowed indiscriminate killing of Afghans on suspicion: Former British official
Last Updated on January 12, 2025 6:06 am
Former British Special Forces officers have said they were allowed to kill anyone, including children, on suspicion of Taliban while serving in Afghanistan.
The BBC reported that this information has emerged from an investigation into possible war crimes committed by the UK in Afghanistan.
On Wednesday, the Afghanistan Inquiry Committee released details of seven secret hearings of Special Forces officers.
British Special Forces, specifically its two branches—the Special Air Service (SAS) and the Special Boat Service (SBS)—conducted anti-Taliban operations in Afghanistan. The investigation is mainly about operations that took place from 2010 to 2013.
In the investigation report, SBS officers have accused the SAS of numerous war crimes. The report describes the SAS’s arrival in Afghanistan in 2009 and their reckless killings on suspicion of Taliban.
One officer also alleged that SAS officers competed over how many people they killed in a single operation.
A senior officer who raised concerns about these extrajudicial killings in 2011 testified to the inquiry. He said, “I believed then and I still do, that at least in some operations the SAS carried out (extrajudicial) killings.”
Another SBS officer described a conversation with an SAS member in a closed hearing in which the SAS member described killing an Afghan man by covering his face with a pillow.
“The method of killing and the description of killing children shocked me the most,” the SBS officer said.
The officer confirmed that children under the age of 16 were also killed in the Afghanistan operation.
Emails from Special Forces officers also revealed accounts of war crimes committed in Afghanistan and their cover-ups.
The report also found that US-backed Afghan forces were also upset by the SAS’s actions. In February 2011, Afghan forces withdrew their support for the SAS at a meeting. An Afghan officer, angered by the SAS’s extrajudicial killings, tried to storm in with a pistol during the meeting.
In an email published on Wednesday, one officer described the meeting as “the most hostile meeting I have ever attended. There was so much shouting, so much hand-waving, at one point I had to look down at my 9mm pistol. It was very uncomfortable.”
Eventually, after a senior British special forces officer intervened, the Afghan units agreed to continue working with the SAS.