Army tried to hide SAS killings of Afghans, inquiry told

A former director of UK special forces and other senior military officers tried to cover up concerns that SAS units were carrying out unlawful killings in Afghanistan, an inquiry has heard.

- Matthew Weaver

A senior special forces whistle-blower said the chain of command had failed to stop unlawful shootings, including of two small children, after the alarm was first raised in early 2011. That failure allegedly allowed them to continue until 2013.

The cover-up allegations are among the most severe to be raised at an inquiry into claims that 80 people were summarily killed by members of three different British SAS units operating in Afghanistan. The inquiry, led by Lord Justice Haddon-Cave, was launched in 2023.

The whistleblower, referred to only by the cipher N1466, said he first flagged concerns about possible "war crimes" to the director of special forces and others in February 2011.

According to newly released redacted transcripts of evidence given in secret last year, the officer said: "We could have stopped it in February 2011. Those people who died unnecessarily from that point onwards, there were two toddlers shot in their bed next to their parents... all that would not necessarily have come to pass if that had been stopped." The allegation appears to refer to the serious injuries sustained by the children of Hussain Uzbakzai and Ruqquia Haleem, Imran and Bilal, who are alleged to have been shot while asleep in their beds during a night-time operation in the village of Shesh Aba, in Nimruz province, in 2012. Imran and Bilal's parents were both killed in the same incident.