New findings from the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force (IGADF) report on war crimes committed by Australian Defence Forces in Afghanistan have revealed gruesome acts of violence against Afghan prisoners and civilians. The inquiry has recommended that 19 soldiers be subjected to criminal investigations by the Australian Federal Police (AFP) for 36 incidents that involve the murder of 39 Afghan citizens and the ‘cruel treatment’ of two others.
The report was initially ordered by Supreme Court Justice Paul Brereton in 2016, who at the time was the Inspector-General of Defence. Brereton himself said that the actions taken by Australian forces could not be dismissed as “disputable decisions made under pressure in the heat of battle”. The findings are drawn from interviews with 423 witnesses, 20,000 documents, and 25,000 images as part of an investigation into the conduct of Australian soldiers in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016.
The inquiry speaks to a pervasive culture of bloodthirst and dishonesty within the Australian forces, with the report detailing how new recruits were initiated by patrol commanders who forced them to kill prisoners. Furthermore, Australian troops regularly planted “weapons, radios, and grenades” on the bodies of Afghan civilians to portray them as “legitimate targets” for any ‘post-incident investigations’.
Among some of the more troubling elements of the report are how “unarmed civilians and prisoners were shot or had their throats slit by some Australian soldiers” who “gloated” about their actions. Some of the victims were as young as 14 years old who were held and then killed on the mere suspicion that they were “Taliban sympathizers”.
Ultimately, the document depicts a “complete lack of accountability”, the “unsanctioned and illegal application of violence on operations”, and a “disregard for human life and dignity” among Australian Special Forces (SF) soldiers. It also confirms an “insidious, abhorrent, and shameful” culture within the SF that “bred” “absolute psychos” with a “blood lust”.
All of this has cast a deeply negative shadow on Australian forces, with 3,000 of the 39,000 Australians deployed to Afghanistan operating within the Special Air Service Regiment (SAS), which has been accused of the vast majority of the war crimes that are being investigated.
In fact, the Australian Defense Force released a statement saying that it has “for some time, been aware of allegations of significant issues involving the Special Operations Task Group in Afghanistan”. This statement is made all the more disturbing by the fact that the report describes how war crimes allegations made by non-government organizations, the Special Air Service, and support stuff were “apparently muted by SF (special forces) leadership in Afghanistan”. For example, one Afghan interpreter repeatedly reported that Australian SF were killing farmers, “but no one ever followed anything up”.
Moreover, it is telling that the Brereton report essentially suggests that the senior command was not aware that their troops were committing war crimes, saying that patrol commanders and lower-ranking sergeants and corporals covered their tracks to ensure that their superiors didn’t learn of their egregious actions.
In a press conference on Thursday, ADF Chief Angus Campbell apologized to the people of Afghanistan for “any wrongdoing by Australian soldiers”, saying that “some patrols took the law into their own hands, rules were broken, stories concocted, lies told and prisoners killed”. He also offered his apologies to Australian citizens.
In response to these findings, Australian PM Scott Morrison called Afghanistan President Ashraf Ghani to offer his apologies, which was recognized in a tweet by Ghani, who said that Morrison had “expressed his deepest sorrow over the misconduct by some Australian troops in Afghanistan and assured the President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan of the investigations and to ensuring justice”. Likewise, Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne also wrote a letter of apology to Ghani.
There are concerns within some quarters, however, that investigations like these can serve as an opportunity for the Taliban to increase its influence by deflecting blame for many of the crimes it committed to foreign fighters. Nishank Motwani, the deputy director of the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit in Kabul, said, “The report will allow the Taliban to blame foreign forces for the suffering of Afghan civilians even though Taliban fighters are responsible for the deaths of over 100,000 civilians in the past decade.”
ADF Report Details Gruesome War Crimes Committed by Australian Troops in Afghanistan
The highly troubling findings have prompted PM Scott Morrison, Foreign Minister Marise Payne, and Australian Defence Forces Chief Angus Campbell to offer their apologies to Afghanistan.
November 20, 2020
IMAGE SOURCE: MICK TSIKAS / APAustralian Defence Forces Chief Gen. Angus Campbell