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UK special forces fighting in Afghanistan had a “golden pass” which allowed them to get away with killing and they operated under “a code of silence” which prevented soldiers from speaking, a public inquiry into alleged crimes has heard war.
The allegations were contained in evidence released on Wednesday by the Afghanistan inquiry as part of a release of material summarizing closed sessions held with seven UK special forces soldiers.
The inquiry is looking into allegations of killings carried out by UK special forces during night raids against the Taliban between 2010 and 2013, which were subsequently covered up.
An officer told the inquest that UK special forces appeared to have “a golden pass which allowed them to get away with murder”.
Asked by Oliver Glasgow, counsel for the inquiry, whether the operational reports of the missions could be read in a way that also indicated that UK special forces “may have carried out additional judicial killings”, the officer replied: “Yes”.
Another officer said soldiers who sought to expose alleged wrongdoing allegedly received a “bullying” from their peers and were told “it’s not your place to ask”.
“I believe the UKSF has a code of silence or omerta, which prevents people from speaking,” he said. “I am concerned for my personal safety in giving this statement.”
The mystique of the United Kingdom’s special forces, the Special Air Service and the Special Boat Service, is underpinned by the secrecy of their operations. In practice, political oversight is limited to a select few – often only the Minister of Defense and the Prime Minister.
The material released to the public on Wednesday summarizes testimony from closed-door hearings held last year, where only the investigative team and representatives of the Ministry of Defense were allowed to attend. Testimonials are also anonymous.
But the hundreds of pages of leaked documents provide a rare glimpse — sometimes in graphic detail — of the allegedly aggressive tactics some special forces units used to hunt down the Taliban.
One unit “adopted a policy of target killing all males of fighting age”, the inquest heard. Some units may also have decided to take “the law into their own hands” rather than release suspected Taliban insurgents.
“It was plausible that frustrations with the inadequacy of detention processes in Afghanistan might have led people to conclude that they should take the law into their own hands,” said one soldier.
Another officer told how some special forces soldiers referred to the slain Afghans as “tight”. He was also asked about the set weapons – known colloquially as “Wolf Lords” – that were sometimes placed next to corpses so they appeared to be armed when they were killed.
Glasgow, the inquest lawyer, asked if this was a reference to the Hollywood film Pulp Fictionin which a character, Mr. Wolf, arrives at a murder scene and announces that he is there “to solve problems”.
The officer replied, “Right. I hadn’t put two and two together.”
