The UK’s Special Forces stopped Afghan soldiers they had fought with from moving to the UK when the Taliban took over Afghanistan. This is according to a report by BBC Panorama.
Leaked papers prove that special forces said no to some people who applied to join them, even though some of the applications showed strong proof that the person had served with the British military.
Afghan commandos went with British special forces on very risky missions during the war.
The Defence Ministry said it was doing a review on its own.
When the Taliban took control in August 2021, members of Afghan Special Forces units CF 333 and ATF 444 were in danger because they had helped UK Special Forces fight against the Taliban.
They could apply to move to the UK under the Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy (Arap) program, but many were not approved. Many people have been hurt, harmed, or killed by the Taliban since.
The Armed Forces Minister, James Heappey, said that they will check 2,000 applications again because they think the process for making decisions about them was not strong enough.
Panorama saw some papers that show a set of rules that say since 2023, any Triples applications that meet a certain standard have been sent to UK Special Forces for approval or denial of sponsorship.
The SOP document, which was found by the investigative website Lighthouse Reports and shared with Panorama, says that if UK Special Forces said no to sponsoring someone, that person was automatically seen as not eligible and got a rejection letter.
Panorama got a hold of emails from inside the Ministry of Defence. The emails showed that government workers in charge of moving people to a new place couldn’t argue with the special forces’ decision to say no, even when they thought the person should be resettled.
Ex-SAS soldiers have told Panorama that they think the veto in the SOP document is a problem for UK Special Forces because it creates a conflict of interest.
The veto allowed special forces to make decisions about applications at a time when an investigation was happening in the UK. The investigation was looking into claims that SAS soldiers had committed war crimes in Afghanistan while the Triples units were there.
The public inquiry can force people in the UK to come and give information, but it can’t force people from other countries who are not in the UK to do the same. If the Afghan Special Forces were in the UK, they might be asked to give important evidence.
“One former UK Special Forces officer said it’s a clear conflict of interest. ”
“At the same time that UK Special Forces are being looked into for their actions by a public inquiry, their headquarters were able to stop former Afghan Special Forces colleagues and potential witnesses from coming to the UK safely. ”
Another ex-soldier from the UK Special Forces told the BBC that it’s not okay and it seems like they are trying to hide something.
A person from the inquiry team told Panorama that they cannot talk about particular witnesses but they know about the recent news about the Triples. They also want anyone with important information to speak up.
Panorama talked to people who used to be part of the Triples but were not allowed to move to a new place in 2023. They say they saw or told about things that seemed like serious crimes done by UK Special Forces.
We looked at the papers from two ex-Triples officers when they applied to the Arap scheme. Here are some examples:
A letter inviting someone to come to SAS headquarters in Hereford to give a talk about the Triples.
Message from the British embassy about money.
Pictures of two UK Special Forces leaders and a British ambassador.
Pictures with Gen David Petraeus, who leads all US troops in Afghanistan.
A British officer’s letter talking about someone who is a part of the “UK mentored Afghan SF” team.
Previous permission to come into the UK.
The people who applied to be officers were not allowed to enter the UK.
They told Panorama that they are hiding in Afghanistan, going from one house to another. They can’t be with their families or work.
One person said he was questioned and hurt by the Taliban before running away. The other person said he ran away first, but heard the Taliban went to his house looking for him.
I’m in a really bad situation. I am hiding and my family can’t live together, go out, or work,” he said.
“I thought my British coworkers and friends, who I worked with for many years, would help me get to a safe place. ” Now I feel like no one remembers the sacrifices I made.
“I feel like I’m all by myself in a really terrible place. ”
Both officers were involved in SAS operations that are currently being looked at closely by the public inquiry.
Someone complained to the British military during those operations. He said that the SAS did bad things in the war and took his team away from helping them because he thought they were killing Afghan people without following the law.
The move caused a big problem in the UK Special Forces. The leaders had to try to fix the situation and get the Afghan partner units to cooperate again.
Lawyers who help former Triples members apply for support said that more of them are getting denied under the Arap scheme.
“Many Triples asked us for help after being turned down in 2023, even though they showed proof of working with the UK Special Forces in Afghanistan and the dangerous situation they are still in,” explained Erin Alcock, a lawyer at Leigh Day.
Ms Alcock said that the applications were rejected all at once under a “blanket policy”.
The Ministry of Defence said that Arap caseworkers make the final decisions and then send eligible cases to the minister for approval.
But it did not argue that UK Special Forces could not refuse applications in 2023.
“We are carefully looking at all the applications from former members of Afghan specialist units, including the Triples, one by one. ” This review will look at all the information we have, including what other people have given us.
“Someone who has never worked on these applications is doing the review. ”
Mr Heappey, who is in charge of the military, said that Triple applications were rejected because the government does not have enough information about their employment and payment history compared to other applicants.
However, soldiers who worked with the Triples disagreed with the minister’s explanation. They said that the Afghan forces were paid by the British directly and that there were records for every payment.
“One former officer saw spreadsheets that clearly showed we paid them for their service, skills, rank, and the number of operations. ”
“These men were on the ground almost every day for 20 years, risking their lives in operations that we told them to be a part of,” he said.
A former soldier said to the BBC that Mr. Heappey was given the wrong information or was lied to. Either way, he is not showing a real interest in learning and exploring new things in his job.
The UK Special Forces were accused of stopping military investigators from asking Afghan partner units about alleged war crimes by the SAS.
Experienced investigators from the Royal Military Police said that leaders of special forces kept stopping them from talking to Afghan soldiers during their investigations from 2012 to 2019.
One former senior investigator said that they found the Afghan partner forces who worked with UKSF could be important witnesses. But when they tried to interview them, the special forces leaders made it very difficult.
The RMP had a hard time getting information, so in 2014 they asked the military prosecutor to charge a high-ranking UK Special Forces officer with interfering with justice. This happened after he ended an interview with an Afghan soldier about accusations of war crimes. The Service Prosecuting Authority decided not to take on the case.