SAS ‘shot toddlers in their beds’, Afghanistan inquiry told

A senior British special forces officer warned that the failure to own up to criminal behaviour in Afghanistan by the SAS – including shooting toddlers in their beds – would allow the regiment to descend into “the sewer” and sink to the level of despotic regimes.

Devastating evidence about a cover-up by special forces was released on Monday by an independent judge-led inquiry into repeated allegations of extra-judicial executions by elite British troops.

Explaining why he decided to blow the whistle, the senior officer told the inquiry in hitherto secret evidence: “It’s not loyalty to your organisation to stand by and to watch it go down the sewer”.

The soldier, who was assistant chief of staff for operations in special forces headquarters, said: “We were there in Afghanistan to bring law and order and human security and justice. We failed”.

Giving evidence in closed sessions of the inquiry about events in Afghanistan between 2010 and 2013, he added: “Right now and beyond Afghanistan, we are facing off against despotic autocracies. It seems to me to be obvious we should not sink to their level”.

The senior officer, who worked closely with the most senior SAS commanders, raised the alarm about a “cancer” of illegal behaviour within a specific SAS squadron but was constantly rebuffed, transcripts of evidence – released despite objections by the Ministry of Defence – reveal.

The transcripts have been redacted to protect the identities of the soldiers involved and their SAS squadrons.

Declassified has reported how the inquiry was forced on the Ministry of Defence after increasingly credible claims of “cold-blooded murder”; of planting weapons on innocent civilians and deleting incriminating documents.

‘Deeply troubled’

The senior officer, identified only by his cipher N1466, described how he was “deeply troubled” by what he suspected was the “unlawful killing of innocent people including children but also the absence of what I considered at the time should have been the response of all officers, including very senior officers in the chain of command, and I struggled to come to terms with what had happened”.

He added: “When you look back on it, on those people who died unnecessarily…there were two toddlers shot in their bed next to their parents, you know, all that would not necessarily have come to pass if that had been stopped”.

He may have been referring to the shootings of Bilal and Imran Uzbakzai in 2012. Bilal, aged one, was seriously wounded in the face and shoulder, while Imran, aged three, had abdominal injuries. Both survived but their parents, Hussain and Ruqqia, died from headshots.

The officer described how he came to the view “that the issue of extra-judicial killings was not confined to a small number of soldiers…but was potentially widespread and was apparently known to many within UKSF [special forces]”.

He said he regretted not pressing the director of UK special forces to report his serious concerns to the Royal Military Police special investigations branch.

A senior civil servant, identified only as N1803, did not later inform a director of special forces about evidence of potential criminality, the transcripts reveal.

N1466 said he lost confidence in the willingness of senior UKSF officers to report the allegations.

Describing himself as “fiercely loyal” to the elite regiments, he commented: “I didn’t join the UKSF for this sort of behaviour, you know, toddlers to get shot in their beds or random killings”.

He suggested special forces soldiers were “deliberately seeking to engage fighting aged males on target regardless of whether they pose a threat”.

He continued: “I will be clear. We are talking about war crimes…we are talking about taking detainees and executing them with a pretence, the pretence being that they conducted violence against the, the forces. I’m being very blunt there, but that was what I felt at the time”.

‘Tip of the iceberg’

Another special forces officer, anonymised as N5461, told the inquiry: “Let’s be clear, EJK [extra judicial killings] happened in Afghanistan, we know that increasingly in court and that’s probably just the tip of the iceberg…[UK special forces] are not immune to it”.

A third soldier, N244, who monitored missions in Afghanistan for special forces headquarters, became suspicious about a rise in the number of detainees being killed after allegedly trying to overpower their captors.

He thought detainees would have to be “incredibly high on drugs” or “have a death wish” if they managed to find a gun after being captured and tried to fight their way out.

A Ministry of Defence spokesperson said: “The government is fully committed to supporting the independent inquiry relating to Afghanistan as it continues its work, and we are hugely grateful to all former and current defence employees who have so far given evidence.

“We also remain committed to providing the support that our special forces deserve, whilst maintaining the transparency and accountability that the British people rightly expect from their armed forces.

“It is appropriate that we await the outcome of the inquiry’s work before commenting further.”

The inquiry continues.