teleSURtv – 2017-07-06 01:10:04
http://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/British-Special-Forces-Accused-of-Afghan-War-Crimes-Cold-Blooded-Executions-of-Civilians-20170702-0023.html
British Special Forces Accused of Afghan War Crimes,
Cold-Blooded Executions of Civilians
teleSURtv
(July 2, 2017) — Family members and officials claim that some victims were handcuffed with plastic zip-ties prior to being murdered in cold blood.
The British Special Air Service is facing accusations of war crimes following the exposure of an internal investigation into murderous rampages conducted across Afghanistan that were subsequently covered up.
The massive Royal Military Police investigation, called Operation Northmoor, has looked into hundreds of allegations of potentially illegal killings conducted between 2010 and 2013, but officials keen to avoid scandal have tried to bury the operation.
The allegations have been described as “credible” by senior military police and sources within the government, which has tried to keep the scandal secret as over 100 RMP officers have combed through evidence showing how SAS personnel massacred unarmed civilians in various operations.
In a 2011 case that remains under investigation, special forces unit troops operating in Qala-e-Bost in southern Helmand province killed four family members during a night raid. Family members and officials claim that two of the victims were handcuffed with plastic zip-ties prior to being murdered in cold blood.
The operation has also discovered that evidence in top-secret reports was tampered with, making it seem as if killings committed by British soldiers were conducted by their Afghan counterparts. Bullets recovered from the bodies of victims showed, however, that SAS firearms were used in killings.
Photos acquired by Northmoor also revealed that weapons were planted on victims to make it seem as if they were Taliban commanders, rather than civilians.
According to officers who spoke to the Sunday Times, the SAS soldiers had adopted the “shoot-to-kill” based on a frustration over the release of Afghan suspects captured in night raids. The unlawful and murderous policy was then applied in missions based on faulty intelligence, leading to a wave of fatal operations against civilians unconnected to the Taliban insurgency.
The operation was established in 2014 and was expected to continue until late 2021, but Ministry of Defense officials eager “to make it go away” due to the grisly details of the scandal instructed the Operation Northmoor team to wind down the investigation by this summer.
A February order by Defense Secretary Sir Michael Fallon dropped 90 percent of the 675 allegations of misconduct, including those regarding 52 unlawful killings conducted by the troops, severely curtailing the ability of military police to properly investigate the 675 allegations leveled by civilians mistreated by British troops in the 13-year imperialist war.
Great Britain’s Record of Bloodshed, Imperialism, Genocide
teleSURtv
For those who fought throughout the 20th century to rid themselves of colonial rule and imperialist occupation by the UK, the price paid was heavy. For those who suffered under a dying British colonialism that was desperate to maintain its “possessions” at all costs, many of the wounds still have not healed nor has the blood dried.
teleSUR takes a look at just some of the more infamous atrocities carried out by the empire upon which “the sun never set,” a country that still remains a monarchy, still occupies far-flung foreign territories such as the Malvinas in Argentina, and still continues to take part in imperialist military operations throughout the ‘post-colonial’ world. (Special thanks to Crimes of Britain for their contribution.)
* On March 31 1904, hundreds of Tibetans were slaughtered by the British with Maxim machine guns. The order from the British was “to make as big a bag as possible.” The day after the massacre Colonel Younghusband, who led the British invasion into Tibet, stated “I trust the tremendous punishment they have received will prevent further fighting, and induce them at last to negotiate”
* North King Street massacre, 28 April 1916: At least seventeen civilians were shot and bayoneted to death by the British Army who went on a murderous rampage on North King Street and its environs. British troops broke into the homes of locals, accused innocent people of being ‘rebels’ and murdered them. Some of the victims were buried in their gardens and cellars by the soldiers.
* Massacre In colonial Amritsar, India On 13 April 1919, British troops under the command of General Dyer fired into a crowd who had gathered at the Jallianwala Bagh public gardens for 10 minutes. Fire was directed towards to the few open gates through which people were trying to flee. Reginald Dyer who ordered the massacre was hailed a hero in Britain.
* Following an Irish operation in which over 14 British intelligence agents were killed, British forces attacked a friendly football match between Dublin and Tipperary at Croke Park. The Tipperary captain Michael Hogan and thirteen spectators died at the scene and almost one hundred people were injured.
* Shaji massacre, China, 1925: On June 23rd 1925 a group of Chinese workers and students in Guangzhou demonstrated, the British military police answered with fire. 52 died. Upon hearing of the massacre workers in Hong Kong responded with a General Strike. A boycott on British goods was declared.
* The British killed at least twenty Palestinian villagers at al-Bassa in September 1938, during an operation in which they were also tortured. Some 50 Palestinian men rounded up by British soldiers who then put around twenty on to a bus, which was then forced to drive over a landmine.
* On April 23rd 1930, British troops stormed Peshawar to suppress non-violent demonstrators who were protesting the arrest of Ghaffar Khan. As troops moved into the Bazaar, British armored cars drove into the square at high-speed, killing several people, and then opened fire with machine guns on the unarmed crowd. Almost 400 were gunned down by British forces at the Qissa Khwani Bazaar (the Storytellers market).
* Massacre in Athens, December 1944. The British Army under the guidance of Churchill perpetrated a massacre on the streets of Athens in the month of December 1944. 28 protesters were shot dead, a further 128 injured. The British demanded that all guerrilla groups should disarm on the 2nd December 1944. The following day 200,000 marched against these demands, and this is when the British Army under Churchill’s orders turned their guns on the people.
* Sherman tanks and troops from the 5th (Scottish) Parachute Battalion, British 2nd Parachute Brigade, fighting against members of ELAS in Athens, 18 December 1944. Churchill regarded ELAS (Greek People’s Liberation Army) and EAM (National Liberation Front) as “miserable banditti,” these were the very people who ran the Nazis out. His actions in the month of December were purely out of his hatred and paranoia for communism.
* The Batang Kali massacre was the killing of 24 villagers by British troops during the so-called “Malayan Emergency.” A conflict the British secretly described as the “defence of the rubber industry.” Despite several investigations into the murders no charges have been brought against any of the perpetrators. In 2015, the British decided that there would be no inquiry into the massacre because it was “too long ago”.
* Chuka massacre, Kenya, 1953: Troops of the King’s African Rifles carry supplies on horseback on watch for Mau Mau rebels. 22 unarmed people were murdered by the British Army’s King’s African Rifles in the Kenyan village of Chuka in June 1953. The British Ministry of Defence in 2006 refused to release files relating to the massacre. There is no doubt this is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to British colonial terror throughout the so-called emergency.
* Hola massacre, Kenya, 1959: 11 Kenyans were clubbed to death by British colonial guards in the Hola ‘detention camp’. 150,000 men, women and children were forced into these camps. Rape, castration, cigarettes, electric shocks and fire all used by the British to torture the Kenyan people. The Cowan Plan advocated the use of force and sometimes death against Kenyan POWs who refused to work. A cover up followed where the British tried to blame “contaminated water” for their deaths.
* The Ballymurphy Massacre saw the British Army murder 11 civilians in cold blood over a 36 hour period. On Monday 9th August 1971 internment without trial was introduced by the British government in the North of Ireland. Over 600 British soldiers entered the Ballymurphy area of West Belfast, raiding homes and rounding up men. Young and old were shot and beaten as they were dragged from their homes. All 11 of the unarmed civilians were murdered by the British Army’s Parachute Regiment who would go on to carry out more massacres in the North of Ireland.
* McGurks Bar massacre, Ireland, 1971: On the evening of Saturday 4th December 1971 a loyalist terror outfit known as the UVF directed by the British military planted a no-warning bomb on the doorstep of a family run pub in Belfast, Ireland. 15 people in total were killed including two children.
Posted in accordance with Title 17, Section 107, US Code, for noncommercial, educational purposes.
