The three-and-a-half-year inquiry into alleged war crimes carried out by members of the SAS in Afghanistan will be further delayed after the Ministry of Defence produced nearly 100 million new files as evidence.
The MoD has apologised to the inquiry’s chair, Lord Justice Charles Haddon-Cave, for “delays in failing to explain why it unexpectedly revealed a further 97 million new documents”, said BFBS Forces News. The government department did later concede that only “around 1,200 might be relevant”.
But Haddon-Cave said the “somewhat casual way” the inquiry was informed about the documents “did not give cause for confidence”.
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With mounting costs and the latest delays, the outcome of the inquiry could still be years away. A spokesperson for the MoD said the government is “fully committed to the Afghanistan inquiry”.
What has the inquiry heard so far?
The inquiry was launched in 2023 after claims that British special forces personnel had “executed captives in Afghanistan and destroyed evidence of wrongdoing”, said The Telegraph. The allegations were that “80 or more unarmed Afghans, including children and detainees, were executed by soldiers” between 2010 and 2013. It is expected that around 150 SAS soldiers who served in Afghanistan will be called to give evidence.
Several senior UK military personnel have told the inquiry that the SAS “carried out extra judicial killings of Afghan civilians”, said the BBC. Concerns were also raised about the secrecy measures used by the SAS and that previous investigations into the allegations had “ended prematurely”.
At closed hearings reported in January last year, several senior officers spoke of their fears “that the regiment, fresh from aggressive, high-tempo operations in Iraq, was being driven by kill counts”, said the BBC. One told the inquiry that the SAS had a “golden pass allowing them to get away with murder”. In emails seen by the inquiry, the officer said the presentation of operational killings in official reports was “quite incredible”, and described the SAS and murder as “regular bedfellows”.
Why has it been delayed?
Proceedings were already behind schedule. Haddon-Cave said an interim report would be published within 18 months (at the end of 2024), but lawyers had accepted publishing in 2028 would be more likely.
Now, more than 97 million files relating to the period 2010-2013, which had previously been discounted by the MoD as being outside the scope of the investigation, have been brought to Haddon-Cave’s attention. This discovery is “troubling and regrettable, and if not rapidly addressed and managed has the capacity to delay the important work of this inquiry”, he said.
Speaking for the Afghan families, Edward Craven KC told the inquiry that due to the number of files to trawl through, “there may be a tension between the imperative of thoroughness and the imperative of timeliness”.
What has the reaction been?
Former SAS personnel have argued that the inquiry is a “witch hunt”, said The Telegraph. Ed Butler, who was an SAS brigadier in Afghanistan, said soldiers had been pursued “through the prism of human rights laws, as opposed to the law of armed conflict and the rules of engagement from the Geneva Convention”, which is “totally inappropriate”.
Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, a former sergeant-major in the SAS, told The Times that the unit’s “principles form the backdrop of every special forces unit in the Western world”.
The inquiry, which has yet to publish any findings, has already racked up costs of £58 million in the three years from its launch to March 2026, according to a Freedom of Information request by the BBC. The MoD revealed that 74 of its staff were currently spending “more than 50% of their time” working on the inquiry.
But public inquiries are “rarely quick or cheap”, said the BBC. For example, the Bloody Sunday inquiry, which found that the killing of 13 protesters in Northern Ireland by British soldiers in 1972 was “unjustified”, took “12 years to complete and cost more than £190 million”.
