‘Children handcuffed and shot’ – ex-UK Special Forces spoil silence on struggle crime claims

Former contributors of UK Special Forces have damaged years of silence to offer BBC Panorama eyewitness accounts of alleged struggle crimes dedicated through colleagues in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Giving their accounts publicly for the primary time, the veterans described seeing contributors of the SAS homicide unarmed folks of their sleep and execute handcuffed detainees, together with kids.

“They handcuffed a young boy and shot him,” recalled one veteran who served with the SAS in Afghanistan. ”He was clearly a child, not even close to fighting age.”

Killing of detainees “became routine”, the veteran mentioned. “They’d search someone, handcuff them, then shoot them”, ahead of reducing off the plastic handcuffs used to restrain folks and “planting a pistol” through the frame, he mentioned.

The new testimony contains allegations of struggle crimes stretching over greater than a decade, a ways longer than the 3 years recently being tested through a judge-led public inquiry in the United Kingdom.

The SBS, the Royal Navy’s elite particular forces regiment, could also be implicated for the primary time in probably the most severe allegations – executions of unarmed and wounded folks.

A veteran who served with the SBS mentioned some troops had a “mob mentality”, describing their behaviour on operations as “barbaric”.

“I saw the quietest guys switch, show serious psychopathic traits,” he mentioned. “They were lawless. They felt untouchable.”

Special Forces had been deployed to Afghanistan to give protection to British troops from Taliban warring parties and bombmakers. The struggle was once a perilous one for contributors of the United Kingdom’s militia – 457 misplaced their lives and hundreds extra had been wounded.

Asked through the BBC in regards to the new eyewitness testimony, the Ministry of Defence mentioned that it was once “fully committed” to supporting the continued public inquiry into the alleged struggle crimes and that it suggested all veterans with related data to return ahead. It mentioned that it was once “not appropriate for the MoD to comment on allegations” that may be within the inquiry’s scope.

The eyewitness testimony gives probably the most detailed public account of the killings to this point from former contributors of UK Special Forces (UKSF), the umbrella staff which accommodates the SAS, SBS and several other supporting regiments.

The testimony, from greater than 30 individuals who served with or along UK Special Forces, builds on years of reporting through BBC Panorama into allegations of extrajudicial killings through the SAS.

Panorama too can divulge for the primary time that then Prime Minister David Cameron was once again and again warned right through his tenure that UK Special Forces had been killing civilians in Afghanistan.

Speaking on situation of anonymity on account of a de facto code of silence round particular forces operations, the eyewitnesses advised the BBC that the rules of struggle had been being frequently and deliberately damaged through the rustic’s maximum elite regiments right through operations in each Iraq and Afghanistan.

Those rules state that on such operations folks can also be intentionally killed simplest once they pose an immediate risk to the lives of British troops or others. But contributors of the SAS and SBS had been making their very own regulations, the eyewitnesses mentioned.

“If a target had popped up on the list two or three times before, then we’d go in with the intention of killing them, there was no attempt to capture them,” mentioned one veteran who served with the SAS, referring to those that have been up to now captured, puzzled after which launched.

“Sometimes we’d check we’d identified the target, confirm their ID, then shoot them,” he mentioned. “Often the squadron would just go and kill all the men they found there.”

One witness who served with the SAS mentioned that killing may just turn into “an addictive thing to do” and that some contributors of the elite regiment had been “intoxicated by that feeling” in Afghanistan. There had been “lots of psychotic murderers”, he mentioned.

“On some operations, the troop would go into guesthouse-type buildings and kill everyone there,” he mentioned. “They’d go in and shoot everyone sleeping there, on entry. It’s not justified, killing people in their sleep.”

A veteran who served with the SBS advised the BBC that once bringing a space below keep watch over, a number of squaddies would sweep in the course of the house taking pictures any person at the flooring, checking the our bodies and killing any person left alive. “It was expected, not hidden. Everyone knew,” he mentioned.

Intentionally killing wounded individuals who don’t pose a risk can be a transparent breach of world regulation. But the SBS veteran advised Panorama that wounded folks had been mechanically killed. He described one operation right through which a medic was once treating any person who have been shot however was once nonetheless respiring. “Then one of our blokes came up to him. There was a bang. He’d been shot in the head at point-blank range,” he mentioned.

The killings had been “completely unnecessary,” he added. “These are not mercy killings. It’s murder.”

More junior contributors of attack groups had been advised through extra senior SAS operators to kill male detainees, consistent with the testimony, the usage of directions corresponding to “he’s not coming back to base with us” or “this detainee, you make sure he doesn’t come off target”.

Detainees had been individuals who had surrendered, been searched through particular forces, and had been usually handcuffed. British and world regulation forbid troops from intentionally killing unarmed civilians or prisoners of struggle.

A former SAS operator additionally described finding out of an operation in Iraq right through which any person was once accomplished.

“It was pretty clear from what I could glean that he posed no threat, he wasn’t armed. It’s disgraceful. There’s no professionalism in that,” the previous operator mentioned. The killing was once by no means correctly investigated, he added. According to the SAS veteran, the issue began lengthy ahead of the regiment moved throughout to Afghanistan and “senior commanders were aware of that”.

The testimony, in addition to new video proof bought through the BBC from SAS operations in Iraq in 2006, additionally helps earlier reporting through Panorama that SAS squadrons stored depend in their kills to compete with one some other.

Sources advised the BBC that some contributors of the SAS stored their very own person counts, and that one operator for my part killed dozens of folks on one six-month excursion of Afghanistan.

“It seemed like he was trying to get a kill on every operation, every night someone got killed,” a former colleague mentioned. The operator was once “notorious in the squadron, he genuinely seemed like a psychopath,” the previous colleague added.

In one incident that assets say changed into notorious throughout the SAS, the operator allegedly slit the throat of an injured Afghan guy after telling an officer to not shoot the person once more. It was once “because he wanted to go and finish the wounded guy off with his knife,” some other former colleague mentioned. “He wanted to, you know, blood his knife.”

Knowledge of the alleged crimes was once no longer confined to small groups or person squadrons, consistent with the testimony. Within the United Kingdom Special Forces command construction, “everyone knew” what was once taking place, mentioned one veteran.

“I’m not taking away from personal responsibility, but everyone knew,” he mentioned. “There was implicit approval for what was happening.”

To keep away from scrutiny of the killings, eyewitnesses mentioned, contributors of the SAS and SBS would plant so-called “drop weapons” at the our bodies of the lifeless, to make it glance as despite the fact that they’d been armed within the images mechanically taken through particular forces groups on the scene.

“There was a fake grenade they’d take with them onto target, it couldn’t detonate,” mentioned a former SAS operator. Another veteran mentioned operators would lift AK-47 rifles which had a folding inventory as a result of they had been more uncomplicated to suit into their rucksacks and “easier to bring onto a target and plant by a body”.

Officers would then lend a hand to falsify post-operational stories with the intention to keep away from scrutiny for the movements of attack groups at the flooring, consistent with the testimony.

“We understood how to write up serious incident reviews so they wouldn’t trigger a referral to the military police,” one of the most veterans mentioned.

“If it looked like a shooting could represent a breach of the rules of conflict, you’d get a phone call from the legal adviser or one of the staff officers in HQ. They’d pick you up on it and help you to clarify the language. ‘Do you remember someone making a sudden move?’ ‘Oh yeah, I do now.’ That sort of thing. It was built into the way we operated.”

The stories had been “a fiction”, some other UKSF veteran mentioned.

An intelligence officer who labored with the SBS described stories which mentioned they’d been stuck in a firefight, whilst the footage confirmed our bodies with “multiple clean headshots”.

Falsified bureaucracy may just lend a hand save you an investigation through the Royal Military Police, however British particular forces operations generated deep fear from Afghan commanders and Afghan executive officers.

David Cameron – who made seven visits to Afghanistan as top minister between June 2010 and November 2013, the duration now below scrutiny through the SAS public inquiry, was once again and again made conscious about the worries through Afghan President Hamid Karzai, consistent with a couple of individuals who attended the conferences.

Mr Karzai “consistently, repeatedly mentioned this issue”, former Afghan nationwide safety adviser Dr Rangin Dadfar Spanta advised Panorama. He mentioned Lord Cameron may have been left in certainly that there have been allegations of civilians, together with kids, being killed right through operations performed through UK Special Forces.

The Afghan president was once “so consistent with his complaints about night raids, civilian casualties and detentions that there was no senior Western diplomat or military leader who would have missed the fact that this was a major irritant for him,” mentioned Gen Douglas Lute, a former US ambassador to Nato.

Gen Lute mentioned it might were “extraordinarily unusual if there were a claim against British forces that the British chain of command was not aware of”.

A spokesperson for Lord Cameron advised Panorama that “to the best of Lord Cameron’s recollection” the problems raised through President Karzai had been about Nato forces usually and that “specific incidents with respect to UK Special Forces were not raised”.

The spokesperson additionally mentioned that it was once “right that we await the official findings of the Inquiry”, including that “any suggestion that Lord Cameron colluded in covering up allegations of serious criminal wrongdoing is total nonsense.”

Unlike many different international locations, together with the United States and France, the United Kingdom has no parliamentary oversight of its elite particular forces regiments. Strategic accountability for his or her movements falls in the long run to the top minister, at the side of the defence secretary and head of particular forces.

Bruce Houlder KC – a former director of carrier prosecutions, chargeable for bringing fees and prosecuting the ones serving within the Armed Forces – advised Panorama that he was hoping the general public inquiry would read about the level of Lord Cameron’s wisdom of alleged civilian casualties on British particular forces operations.

“You need to know how far the rot went up,” Mr Houlder mentioned.