Afghan Inquiry: further Royal Military Police documents released

Unredacted has today published more than 60 Royal Military Police documents relating to Operation Northmoor, the investigation into allegations of extrajudicial killings by members of UK Special Forces in Afghanistan.

The documents were first released earlier this month by the Independent Inquiry Relating to Afghanistan – established in the wake of allegations that UK Special Forces committed war crimes in Afghanistan by engaging in a series of extrajudicial killings – after a long-running effort by the Ministry of Defence to prevent their publication.¹

The releases are based on a documentary review of two RMP investigations, Operation Northmoor and Operation Cestro, which was conducted on behalf of the Inquiry by Alan Pughsley QPM (a former Chief Constable with extensive experience of investigating serious and complex organised crime.)

This review found that Operation Northmoor was launched far too late, with ‘a near complete loss of forensic opportunities and of contemporaneous contact with potential witnesses in Afghanistan, as well as contemporaneous accounts of those members of UKSF involved in the operations.’² This was due not least to the decision by senior officers in Directorate Special Forces in March 2011, some three years earlier, to avoid referring to the police their knowledge of concerns in relation to UKSF operations in Afghanistan. Pughsley also found that, once underway, Northmoor’s structure, funding and strategy was unsatisfactory given its seriousness. Later, in 2016, newly-appointed external advisors became too involved in the investigation itself, which continued to fail to consider the separate allegations as a ‘linked series’.³ The investigation, overall, was ‘slow to commence, sluggish in its progress, and was never properly resourced.’⁴ Given the outstanding lines of enquiry in 2019, Pughsley also found that the decision to close the investigation was ‘inappropriate and premature.’⁵

Included in the documents released today are a redacted version of Alan Pughsley’s report, along with an executive summary and addendum.⁶ Also published are a series of RMP documents, including:

• Early strategic reviews of Operation Northmoor by Greater Manchester Police and the National Crime Agency,⁷ as well as later reviews by the Independent Review Team (brought in to overhaul and dramatically overall the scope of Operation Northmoor).⁸
• Over 40 ‘policy decisions’ from within Operation Northmoor, classified as either RESTRICTED or SECRET and dated 2014-18. These cover a range of issues, including early plans to conduct house-to-house enquiries in Afghanistan, the need to preserve data from within Directorate Special Forces, and blockages experienced by investigators when attempting to interview high-ranking UKSF officers and retrieve data from UKSF servers.⁹
• Operation Northmoor’s 94-page ‘executive summary’, prepared as a form of closing report, as well as agenda and speaking notes for the meeting to decide on the closure of the investigation.¹⁰

1. Independent Inquiry Relating to Afghanistan (Counsel to the Inquiry), Note: Expert Evidence of Alan Pughsley QPM, 29 Jan 2025; Independent Inquiry Relating to Afghanistan, Submission: Expert Evidence of Alan Pughsley QPM (Ministry of Defence), 10 Feb 2025; Independent Inquiry Relating to Afghanistan, Submission: Expert Evidence of Alan Pughsley QPM (Ministry of Defence), 21 Feb 2025; Independent Inquiry Relating to Afghanistan (Inquiry Chair), Ruling: Ministry of Defence Application to Restrict Publication of the Alan Pughsley QPM Material and Other Materials, 22 Sep 2025. ↩︎
2. Independent Inquiry Relating to Afghanistan, Report of Alan Pughsley: Executive Summary, 14 Aug 2024, p. 3. ↩︎
3. Independent Inquiry Relating to Afghanistan, Report of Alan Pughsley: Executive Summary, 14 Aug 2024, pp. 4-5. ↩︎
4. Independent Inquiry Relating to Afghanistan, Report of Alan Pughsley: Executive Summary, 14 Aug 2024, p. 5. ↩︎
5. Independent Inquiry Relating to Afghanistan, Report of Alan Pughsley: Executive Summary, 14 Aug 2024, p. 6. ↩︎
6. Independent Inquiry Relating to Afghanistan, Report of Alan Pughsley, 14 Aug 2024; Independent Inquiry Relating to Afghanistan, Report of Alan Pughsley: Executive Summary, 14 Aug 2024; Independent Inquiry Relating to Afghanistan, Report of Alan Pughsley: Addendum, 23 Oct 2024. ↩︎
7. Greater Manchester Police, Review of Strategic Structure and Management Processes: Operation Northmoor, Martin Bottomley (Force Review Officer), 15 Aug 2014; National Crime Agency (Organised Crime Command), PIP 4 Report: Operation Northmoor, Detective Superintendent Paul Williamson, version 6, 18 Feb 2015. ↩︎
8. Royal Military Police (Independent Review Team), Review of Operation Northmoor, Philip Jones and Cliff Evans, 24 Jan 2017; Royal Military Police (Independent Review Team), Assurance of IRT Operation Northmoor: Recommendations, Philip Jones and Cliff Evans, 22 Nov 2017; Royal Military Police (Independent Review Team), Assurance of IRT Operation Northmoor: Recommendations, Philip Jones and Cliff Evans, 2 Aug 2018; Royal Military Police (Independent Review Team), Assurance of IRT Operation Northmoor: Recommendations, Philip Jones and Cliff Evans, 12 Apr 2019. ↩︎
9. See, for example: Royal Military Police (Operation Northmoor), Policy Decision: DSF Documentation / Data, Policy File Report 15 (PL175), Capt Jason Wright, 2 Oct 2014; Royal Military Police (Operation Northmoor), Policy Decision: House to House, Policy File Report 16 (PL176), Capt Jason Wright, 3 Oct 2014; Royal Military Police (Operation Northmoor), Secret Policy Decision: Interview of N2108, Policy File Report S63/01 (PL426), Capt Jason Wright, 21 Oct 2015; Royal Military Police (Operation Northmoor), Secret Policy Decision: Interview of N1802, Policy File Report S95/01 (PL496), Capt Jason Wright, 12 Jan 2016; Royal Military Police (Operation Northmoor), Secret Policy Decision: Data Recovery, Policy File Report S186/01 (PL623), Capt Jason Wright, 8 Sep 2016. ↩︎
10. Royal Military Police (Operation Northmoor), Operation Northmoor: Executive Summary, Maj Matthew Cox, undated [2019]; Royal Military Police (Operation Northmoor), Note: Op Northmoor Gold Meeting, undated [14 Jun 2019]; Royal Military Police (Operation Northmoor), Note: Agenda for Op Northmoor Executive Group, 15 Jul 2019. ↩︎