{"id":15999,"date":"2020-08-04T10:36:40","date_gmt":"2020-08-04T05:36:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/?p=15999"},"modified":"2020-08-04T10:36:40","modified_gmt":"2020-08-04T05:36:40","slug":"uk-special-forces-accused-of-deliberate-afghan-killings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/archives\/15999","title":{"rendered":"UK special forces accused of deliberate Afghan killings"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON<\/strong><\/p>\n

Leaked documents claimed that the UK special forces carried out deliberate killings in Afghanistan, local media reported on Monday.<\/p>\n

The court documents and internal army e-mails were referring to the killing of 33 civilian Afghans, and they were part of an ongoing court case into whether the killings were properly investigated, according to reports by international media.<\/p>\n

The case was brought by Saifullah Yar, whose family members were killed by the UK forces in a night raid in Afghanistan in February 2011.<\/p>\n

Yar lost his father, two brothers, and a cousin.<\/p>\n

One British soldier said in an e-mail he had \u201cheard rumours\u201d of the \u201clatest massacre\u201d, the reports added.<\/p>\n

The documents show one high-ranking British military officer raise concerns about \u201cpossibly a deliberate policy\u201d to \u201cengage and kill fighting-aged males on target even when they did not pose a threat.\u201d<\/p>\n

In an e-mail exchange, one soldier said: \u201cBasically, for what must be the 10th time in the last two weeks, when they sent a B back into the A to open the curtains (??) he re-appeared with an AK.<\/p>\n

\u201cThen when they walked back in to a different A with another B to open the curtains he grabbed a grenade from behind a curtain and threw it at the c\/s.<\/p>\n

\u201cFortunately, it didn\u2019t go off\u2026 this is the eighth time this has happened. And finally they shot a guy who was hiding in a bush who had a grenade in his hands. You couldn\u2019t MAKE IT UP!\u201d<\/p>\n

In military language, A is an Afghan male, B is a building, c\/s is a soldier or soldiers, and AK is an AK-47 rifle.<\/p>\n

In another e-mail, a senior special forces officer asks if anyone had \u201ccome up with an explanation\u201d for why supposed Taliban fighters were \u201ckeeping grenades in their pockets\u201d and \u201cre-entering buildings during the search phase and coming back out with a weapon against an overwhelming force.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yar\u2019s lawyer, Tessa Gregory from the Leigh Day law firm, said: \u201cThe material disclosed is deeply troubling. Not only does it show that the Afghan Partnering Unit raised immediate and serious concerns about the shootings of our client\u2019s relatives, it also shows that members of the British Army were contemporaneously raising concerns that the shootings formed part of a pattern of killings by the same unit, with there even being a suggestion that there was a deliberate policy of killing fighting-aged males when they posed no threat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is a matter of grave concern that all of this nearly remained hidden,\u201d she said. \u201cIt substantially adds to our client\u2019s concern that there has been a cover-up and it has left him more determined than ever to find out the truth of what happened to his loved ones.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Defense Ministry spokesperson said: \u201cThis is not new evidence, and this historical case has already been independently investigated by the Royal Military Police (RMP) as part of Operation Northmoor. It has also been subject to four reviews conducted by an independent review team.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese documents were considered as part of the independent investigations, which concluded there was insufficient evidence to refer the case for prosecution.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Service Police and the Service Prosecuting Authority of course remain open to considering allegations should new evidence, intelligence, or information come to light,\u201d added the spokesperson.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LONDON Leaked documents claimed that the UK special forces carried out deliberate killings in Afghanistan, local media reported on Monday. The court documents and internal army e-mails were referring to the killing of 33 civilian Afghans, and they were part of an ongoing court case into whether the killings were properly investigated, according to reports […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":12824,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,1416],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-afghanistan","category-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15999"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16000,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15999\/revisions\/16000"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12824"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}