A multiyear investigation into the systematic practice of unlawful killings and detainee mistreatment by UK Special Forces units deployed to Afghanistan, and the subsequent coverup of this criminality by multiple agencies and institutions of the British state.
Mounting evidence suggests that, from at least 2010, UK Special Forces (UKSF) units engaged in a practice of deliberately killing unarmed boys and men during UK-led ‘night raids’ across southern Afghanistan. Overall, scores of people were killed in suspicious circumstances during these operations. Many appear to have been executed, either while in custody of the UKSF unit (sometimes with their hands bound) or else shot where they were sleeping. These killings appear to have been systematic, stretching across operations and rotations, and forming part of a deliberate (if unofficial) policy to execute all ‘fighting age males’ found on target. This included those who were unarmed and thus not posing a threat to UK forces, and it included what appears to have been the deliberate killing of children as young as 12.
While these matters are now the subject of an ongoing judge-led Inquiry, the Independent Inquiry Relating to Afghanistan, much of this work is being carried out behind closed doors. We will therefore continue to track the commission of these war crimes by units on the ground, the contemporaneous knowledge of these practices, at all levels within UKSF, and the wider military and political cover-up in the years since.
