Long-Awaited Report Implicates Australian Special Forces In Killing Of 39 Afghan Civilians

Long-Awaited Report Implicates Australian Special Forces in Killing of 39 Afghan Civilians

A long-awaited report into the conduct of Australian special forces in Afghanistan has found that elite servicemen took part in the extrajudicial killing of 39 Afghan civilians while deployed in country alongside the US-led coalition

MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 19th November, 2020) A long-awaited report into the conduct of Australian special forces in Afghanistan has found that elite servicemen took part in the extrajudicial killing of 39 Afghan civilians while deployed in country alongside the US-led coalition.

The report by Australian Supreme Court Justice Paul Brereton, which took more than four years to complete, recommended that 19 soldiers be investigated for murder in the context of war crimes for the deaths of 39 non-combatant civilians off the battlefield between 2005 and 2016.

The highly anticipated inquiry details gruesome episodes of so-called blooding - killings of detained civilians as part of an initiation ritual for new soldiers in the elite Special Operations Task Group. They would then plant evidence such as weapons or radio devices on victims' bodies to justify the killings. A culture of competitiveness, toxic masculinity and secrecy helped keep the incidents under wraps for years, the investigation found.

The Inquiry has found that there is credible information that junior soldiers were required by their patrol commanders to shoot a prisoner, in order to achieve the soldier's first kill, in a practice that was known as 'blooding,'" the report read.

It also described how evidence were planted to cover up the crime.

"'Throwdowns' would be placed with the body, and a 'cover story' was created for the purposes of operational reporting and to deflect scrutiny. This was reinforced with a code of silence," the report detailed.

Complaints filed by Afghan nationals were quickly discounted as insurgent propaganda as the Special Operations Task Group members were in line for additional payouts for combat killings, the inquiry found.

The report recommended Australia compensate the families of the victims regardless of legal court proceedings.

Shortly after the publication of the report, Chief of the Australian Defense Force Angus Campbell called a news conference in which he acknowledged the findings and called the actions "shameful" and "damaging to our moral authority as a military force."

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morisson called�Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani and "expressed his deepest sorrow over the misconduct by some Australian troops in Afghanistan and assured him of the investigations and to ensuring justice," the president's office said in a statement.