Evidence of UK war crimes in Afghanistan suppressed, inquiry hears | BBC News

Welcome to the Global News podcast on. YouTube, where we take a deeper look at. one of the stories in the headlines. Hello, I'm Oliver Conway, and today. we're examining claims that two former. British special forces chiefs suppressed. evidence of possible war crimes by the. SAS in Afghanistan. The allegation was. made by a former high-ranking officer in. closed evidence at a public inquiry. Following this for us, our senior. international reporter Joel Gunter. And. Joel, this dates back to the war in. Afghanistan nearly 15 years ago. What.

were British special forces doing there? >> That's right. These allegations date. back to about 2010 when the regular. British army was involved in a. protracted conflict with the Taliban in. Afghanistan in Helman Province. British. special forces, principally the SAS at. that time, was supporting the regular. British army in their mission. Now, what. the SAS was up to was principally. conducting these night raids known in.

military jargon as deliberate detention. operations. These are very fastm moving, very kinetic uh to use another military. word, um night raids essentially, uh. often very violent. Uh they were. operating in the province, often in. rural areas under the cover of dark. going after in theory uh Taliban targets. uh bomb makers, people planting IEDs, um members of the Taliban. Um and so.

that was the SAS's role. Uh these were. often extremely violent raids at times. uh regularly involved people being. killed and those are the operations. which have led to these allegations. surfacing years later uh and resulting. now in a public inquiry. >> Yeah. Um before we look at the specific. claims, you better talk about that. inquiry and and how it came about. It. was after a BBC report. >> That's right. The inquiry was announced.

back in sort of autumn 2022 and it. followed a series of reports um by BBC. Panorama by me and my colleagues looking. at these allegations. Um Panorama. reported that uh the SAS had killed 54. people in suspicious circumstances on. just one six-month tour. We then. followed up with a quite in-depth report. about one specific raid back in 2012 on. which the SAS tragically killed uh two.

young parents while they slept in bed. with their two infant sons who were also. shot and gravely wounded. Um and the BBC. was the first really to uncover that. that raid existed because it had never. been reported by special forces to the. military police. Um and the inquiry. there had been some sense that for a. little while prior to that that the uh. Ministry of Defense was going to. announce some kind of investigation into.

these allegations. Um and eventually. that became following our reporting that. year that became a full-blown judge-led. public inquiry which is sitting now. And. the inquiry is a mixture of open. hearings in court in the high court in. London which we can go to as journalists. and members of the public can if they. want to and closed hearings. So that is. in order that former members of the. special forces who have the privilege of. anonymity can go and give closed door.

testimony. >> And what are these allegations which. have now been made against two former. special forces bosses? Now the allegations are very serious. Uh. the sort of underlying allegations are. things which we already knew to an. extent and which we have already. reported. Um they are that members of. the SAS killed detainees unarmed. civilians including children's uh. including children on these night.

operations. um including a very. troubling tactic which emerged where uh. detainees uh during these raids would be. taken back into a building uh under the. pretense of searching helping search the. building um and then killed despite. having been essentially detained and. brought under control. And the. operational reports which followed would. say uh that the uh the person who had. been detained and was helping with the.

search had suddenly reached for a weapon. like a hand grenade or a rifle behind a. curtain for example. Um and uh these. this language in these operational. reports raised red flags back in London. um because people were noticing that it. was unusual, it was new and uh it didn't. accord with any known Taliban tactics. prior to that. >> And tell us about the person who is. making these allegations and and why. they can't be named.

>> Yeah, I should say. So, so those are the. kind of underlying allegations and uh. what is sort of new is that what we're. hearing from this new release of closed. door testimony is that a former very. senior member of UK special forces who. was based in London is saying that these. allegations were known about in detail. by two former director special forces. So this is the most senior person in UK. special forces. Essentially the person.

who commands both the SAS and the SPS, the the sister regiment from the Royal. Navy. Um so this officer uh giving. anonymous testimony to the inquiry uh. essentially laid out that he had briefed. uh one of these director special forces. in detail about some of these troubling. allegations and the statistics and. rumors that were floating around around. this kind of behavior. He also told the. inquiry that the subsequent director of. special forces also knew about these.

troubling allegations and neither of. them reported these allegations to the. Royal Military Police. And that's really. important because under British law, any. commanding officer in the military is. obliged to report to the military police. if there is any possibility that someone. under their command has committed a. serious offense. Um, in terms of the. person making the allegations, what we. can say is that it's a, you know, he's a. former senior officer in special forces.

based in London, but importantly, he was. also someone who had operational. experience in the field. And that meant. that when these were reports were coming. back with what he saw as some of these. troubling tactics and behaviors, troubling death tolls, etc., he was in a position to sort of read. between the lines and understand a. little bit what was going on in the. field. Um but much more than that we. can't say about him because he is. afforded anonymity by the inquiry.

>> but he is essentially accusing these two. of a cover up. >> The word he uses is suppressed the. evidence. Um, so you know, you can read. into that, but yeah, he he is. essentially saying that he uh showed. this evidence back in 2011 uh in detail, raised these concerns with the director. of special forces. Um, and he said he. did so in the expectation uh certainly. that they would be reported on by the. director of special forces to the.

military police. That didn't happen. What happened instead was that the. director of special forces commissioned. a sort of internal special forces review. which was premised on the idea that what. was going wrong was not unlawful killing. but just a sort of tactical error that. was leading to these um unfortunate. circumstances. So what was commissioned. instead was a tactical review of the way. that the SAS was carrying out some of.

these raids um which essentially sort of. uh went nowhere. Uh the officer, the. anonymous officer who was giving this. evidence to the inquiry called it a. copout and he called it a warning shot. essentially to the SAS squadron out in. the field at that time to tone down the. violence. Um so very much alleging that. rather than involve the Royal Military. Police, this was being suppressed uh. internally essentially to avoid.

accountability. >> And have we had any response to this. evidence? >> We have. So the BBC approached the two. director special forces who are involved. in this report. Uh obviously we can't. name them publicly in our reporting. because of the strict reporting. restrictions around the inquiry. Uh but. we did approach them for comment. One of. those directors, former directors told. us uh well essentially didn't comment,

declined to comment. The other told us. that um these allegations had been. refuted um and that he would uh address. them specifically when he gave his own. evidence to the inquiry. Thank you for. your time, Joel. Joel Gunter, our senior. international reporter. If you enjoyed. this episode, please like and subscribe. here on YouTube. If there's anything you. want us to cover, leave a comment below. For more international news, check us. out wherever you get your BBC podcasts. But that's it for now from the Global.

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