Ex-Officer Says SAS Leadership Ignored Signs of Unlawful Killings in Afghanistan
A growing body of testimony at the UK’s Afghanistan Inquiry paints a stark picture of how allegations of unlawful killings by British special forces were handled — or, as one senior officer says, deliberately buried.
The officer, known publicly as N1466, served as Assistant Chief of Staff for Operations in UK Special Forces headquarters and is now one of the highest-ranking insiders to allege that a culture of impunity developed inside parts of the force, especially within a sub-unit referred to as UKSF1.
According to N1466, concerns first appeared in early 2011 after repeated night-raid reports showed more people were being killed than the amount of weapons recovered. He said the pattern made the official explanations — detainees supposedly reaching for grenades or rifles — look implausible. “I will be clear we are talking about war crimes,” he told the inquiry. What troubled him most, he said, was the possibility that “innocent people, including children” were being killed.
He raised his concerns at the time with the then-director of special forces, known as N1802, warning that there was “a strong potential of criminal behaviour.” But instead of passing the material to military police, as required by law, N1466 said the director opted for an internal review of tactics — a move he described as a “charade” meant to keep the matter quiet rather than uncover wrongdoing. A second director who took over in 2012 was also accused of failing to act, with N1466 saying leadership was “very much suppressing” the allegations.
Testimony presented to the inquiry shows that the warnings extended beyond statistical oddities in reports. A note written by N1466 in April 2011 recorded that the commanding officer of UKSF1 believed some of his troops were following a “deliberate policy” to “kill fighting-aged males… even when they did not pose a threat.” Troops had even been overheard bragging about it, according to whistleblowers.
Other incidents described in documents released by the inquiry include women and children being shot after hiding under a mosquito net, and the 2012 killing of a mother and father in bed alongside their young sons — both toddlers hit by gunfire. “...we didn't join the UKSF for this sort of behaviour, you know, toddlers to get shot in their beds or random killing. It's not special, it's not elite, it's not what we stand for and most of us I don't believe would either wish to condone it or to cover it up,” N1466 said.
Despite multiple earlier probes — including Operation Northmoor and Operation Cestro — none resulted in prosecutions. Afghan families have long claimed UK units ran a “campaign of murder,” and that parts of the Ministry of Defence sought to avoid serious scrutiny. The MoD says it supports the independent inquiry and will wait for its conclusions before commenting further.
N1466 said speaking publicly was the only way to protect the integrity of the forces he once served: “It’s not loyalty to your organisation to stand by and to watch it go down a sewer.” The inquiry is ongoing.
