The product of a four-year investigation, the programme, to be broadcast on BBC One on Tuesday night, concludes that 54 people were killed in suspicious circumstances by an SAS unit in Helmand province between 2010 and 2011. Based on official British records, 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 on night raids. Male prisoners were often removed from captured family groups and shot after they were said to have unexpectedly produced a grenade or an AK47 rifle, prompting the program to question whether the activities of SAS units amounted to 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 secret memo that there could be a “deliberate policy” of extrajudicial killing in mode. However, before the program aired, the Foreign Office warned that it could put British soldiers at risk because it “draws unwarranted conclusions” from claims the ministry said had been the subject of two investigations by military police, which they did not lead to prosecutions. “Neither investigation found sufficient evidence to prosecute. To imply otherwise is irresponsible, incorrect and puts the brave personnel of our armed forces at risk, both in the field and in reputation,” the State Department said. In 2014, military police launched Operation Northmoor, an investigation into allegations of more than 600 alleged wrongdoing by British forces in Afghanistan, including the killing of civilians by the SAS. It was abolished in 2017 and closed in 2019, and the Foreign Office said no evidence of criminality was found. The files obtained by the BBC related to police investigations and the broadcaster said members of the Northmoor team disputed the Foreign Office’s conclusion that there was no case to answer. One of the dead was a former district governor, Haji Ibrahim, who had collaborated with the British. The SAS report on events on the night of 29-30 November 2010 says Ibrahim was arrested and then sent to help search a building – where he was shot and killed “when he displayed hostile intent by brandishing a grenade”. However, his family told the BBC that his hands were tied and he was killed. His son described having to remove plastic handcuffs from his father’s wrists before the family could bury his body. Similar incidents were noted by the BBC to have taken place 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 on tour and the unit at the center of the investigation was trying to achieve a higher body 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 was killed “grabbed a grenade from behind a curtain” – but the explosive failed to detonate, which was “the eighth time this has happened”. Capitalizing the last three words, he said, “You couldn’t make it up.” Labor said the allegations were worrying and cast “a dark shadow” on the reputation of Britain’s armed forces. The party called on ministers to give a full explanation to MPs. John Healey, the shadow defense secretary, said his counterpart Ben Wallace “must urgently explain to parliament what steps he will take to verify any truth in these allegations and any potential cover-up”. Ministers sought to draw a line on historic prosecutions of members of the armed forces, following allegations that law firms tried to bring nuisance cases against the military. The Overseas Business Act 2021 had sought to introduce a statutory presumption against prosecution of British soldiers for events that took place five or more years earlier. However, during the passage of the legislation through parliament, ministers admitted that war crimes would be among the offenses that would be exempt from the five-year limit. The Foreign Office said it was willing to consider reopening the investigations. “The Ministry of Defense is of course open to consider any new evidence, there would be no obstacle. However, in the absence of this, we strongly object to this subjective report,” a spokesperson said. Australian special forces were involved in the alleged killings of 39 Afghan civilians, beating captive junior soldiers to “blood” before inventing cover stories and planting weapons in corpses, a judge-led inquiry concluded in 2020. However, the Australians served in a different province of Afghanistan and the Foreign Office said no British personnel were persons of interest to this investigation.
