BBC program exposes heinous killing of unarmed Afghan Detainees by British Special Forces

News Desk

The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) is angered by the BBC’s decision to air the documentary accusing it of being “irresponsible and incorrect”. The BBC in its defense said that the report was “firmly in the public interest.”

Panorama alleges to have uncovered 54 suspicious killings carried out by a British SAS unit on a single six-month tour in 2010-2011. It alleges that the senior command was in full knowledge of the killings but chose to conceal these.

BBC claims that General Sir Mark Carleton-Smith, a former SAS commander and head of the army until last month, appears to have failed to disclose crucial evidence to a murder inquiry by the Royal Military Police in 2014 which was investigating following earlier concerns.

The RMP was investigating 675 criminal allegations in Afghanistan, including a number of killings by the SAS squadron. Six years later, the British government closed down the investigation. No UK soldier faced prosecution. But investigators told the BBC that they were obstructed by the British military in their efforts to gather evidence which may explain why there was insufficient evidence to charge anyone.

However, the BBC seems to have unearthed shocking evidence that Britain’s Special Forces executed detainees and murdered unarmed people in cold blood in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan was not the first time where the British soldiers had committed war crimes. In 2020, the international criminal court found evidence that British troops committed similar war crimes in Iraq. They admitted that war-torn zones present particular challenges. Operating in intense danger can even blur the minds of the best and well-trained but to indulge in system killings of the unarmed and defenseless cannot be justified.  Those guilty of these heinous crimes should be held accountable.