Commandos in the United Kingdom’s elite Special Air Service (SAS) corps killed at least 54 Afghans in suspicious circumstances during a six-month tour of Helmand province from November 2010 to May 2011, but the military chain of command concealed concerns, according to a BBC media network investigation.
Unarmed Afghan men were routinely shot dead “in cold blood” by SAS troops during night-time raids during the long war in Afghanistan, and weapons were planted on them to justify the crimes, the four-year inquiry found.
Senior officers, including General Mark Carleton-Smith, who headed the UK Special Forces at the time, were aware of concerns within the SAS about the operations but failed to report them to military police, the BBC said on Tuesday.
Under UK law governing the armed forces, it is a criminal offence for a commanding officer to fail to inform the military police if they become aware of potential war crimes, the BBC noted.
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