UK occupation troops were recently accused of summarily executing dozens of civilians in Afghanistan during a 10-year period
Five active members of the Special Air Service (SAS) have been arrested in the UK for alleged war crimes committed during illegal British operations in Syria in 2022.
The unnamed suspects were arrested by the British military police over the murder of a “suspected militant,” as authorities say the soldiers used “excessive force” and should have arrested the suspect instead of shooting him dead, the Daily Mail reported.
While the UK Ministry of Defense has not commented on the case, a statement provided to The Independent reads: “We hold our personnel to the highest standards, and any allegations of wrongdoing are taken seriously. Where appropriate, any criminal allegations are referred to the service police for investigation.”
Per the report, a “primed suicide vest” was found near the murdered Syrian man. However, he was not wearing it at the time of his death. According to the detained SAS soldiers, the unnamed suspect “posed a threat and intended to carry out a suicide attack.”
The SAS has been actively deployed in Syria for the past decade in support of the US-led war and occupation in the country.
The murder probe comes less than a year after it was revealed that SAS soldiers summarily executed at least 80 civilians in Afghanistan during raids carried out in the country between 2010 and 2013.
One of the soldiers who operated in Afghanistan is believed to have “personally killed” 35 Afghans as part of an alleged policy to terminate “all fighting-age males … regardless of the threat they posed” during home raids.
The SAS conducted regular night raids on family compounds in search of Taliban fighters during London’s military operations in Helmand province, which ended in 2014. These raids included executing civilian men and planting weapons next to their bodies to justify the killings.
The BBC obtained detailed military reports of SAS night raids and uncovered a “pattern of strikingly similar reports of Afghan men being shot dead because they pulled AK-47 rifles or hand grenades from behind furniture after having been detained.”
In 2014, UK military police launched an investigation into allegations of more than 600 offenses by British forces in Afghanistan, including the alleged killing of civilians by the SAS. However, no prosecutions of soldiers resulted.
The SAS boosted its operations in Lebanon following the start of Israel’s campaign of genocide in Gaza. The UK military also markedly increased arms transfers to Israel from their air bases in Cyprus.
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