(Kabul, April 5, 2014), Relatives, friends, and women’s rights activists grieve at the home of Farkhunda Malikzada, who was killed by a mob in the center of Kabul. by the “genocidal intent of the Sri Lankan State” and accusing the Sri Lankan armed forces of “running amok” and killing Tamil children during the negotiations. Captain Smith was deployed to Palaly, a Sri Lankan air base in the Tamil stronghold of Jaffna that was besieged by militants. Australian SAS troopers committed 'war crimes' in Afghanistan Published 19 Nov 2020 Australian special forces unlawfully killed 39 people in Afghanistan between 2005 and 2016, a report has found. On 26 May 1987, Operation Liberation was unleashed and napalm was used against Tamil civilians. By this point in the conflict, the STF had received three years of training from KMS, and its operations had become far more lethal since its first massacre in September 1984 of around 18 civilians at Point Pedro. (Kandahar, October 13, 2009). By 1958, the “Malayan Emergency” had been sufficiently subdued for Baty’s squadron to be redeployed to the next colonial flashpoint: Oman. Seven-year-old Attiullah, a patient at Mirwais Hospital, stands alongside an X ray showing the bullet that entered his back, nearly killing him. “Yes and you can bugger off!”, he shouted down at me, before I had a chance to introduce myself. While Smith worked with the Sri Lankan airforce and army, there were also mounting concerns about the conduct of the KMS-trained STF. The company now had 36 staff in Sri Lanka working with the airforce, STF, army and intelligence, although some staff were starting to feel the strain. Baty’s pilots embarked on operations to take territory from the Tamils in the north of the country. The video of the Australian SAS killing the farmer in Afghanistan is quite clearly an execution and nothing but a war crime. In 1959, following reconnaissance by British Army counter-insurgency expert Frank Kitson, Baty took part in a raid on Jebel Akhdar (“Green Mountain”) in which they routed the rebel stronghold near to Oman’s capital. SAS soldiers 'suspected' of executing unarmed Afghans and covering up potential war crimes. Special Air Service (SAS) veteran Brian Baty who “served on covert operations across the crumbling British empire from the 1950s, then sold his counter-insurgency experience to the Sri Lankan government, profiting from massacres of Tamil civilians” died without facing justice from war crimes, Phil Miller writes for the Daily Maverick. In April 1976, with the Omani revolutionaries mostly defeated and resistance to British rule in Northern Ireland escalating, Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson sent the SAS D Squadron to the IRA stronghold of South Armagh. "2 SAS Regiment, War Crimes Investigations, and British Intelligence: Intelligence Officials and the Natzweiler Trial." A judge wants to know why evidence of the unit’s alleged actions was withheld. Foley praised Baty’s tenure in charge of Pontrilas, claiming: “Without his brilliant guidance, determined leadership and flair as a trainer, the effectiveness of surveillance operations would have been greatly reduced.” Foley recommended Baty for an MBE honour, a move which was supported by the Queen’s aide-de-camp, General Frank. A week before he died, they reluctantly released some more paperwork about KMS, but with heavy redactions – an entire page blacked out for instance. Their post-mortem reports show six of the deceased Tamils were shot from the back. Baty served in Aden as the intelligence officer for the Argyll’s 1st Battalion, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Colin Mitchell, who was known as “Mad Mitch” for his notorious brutal stance toward the local population. Between August 1985 and May 1986, Tamil priests in Sri Lanka recorded more than 50 attacks by helicopters. On 17 August 1985, the Tamil delegation walked away from the peace-talks. Despite years of official obstruction, in January 2020, I published my book, Keenie Meenie: The British Mercenaries Who Got Away With War Crimes, which laid bare the extent of Baty’s misdeeds in Sri Lanka. “Hello”, I called out as Baty, a well-built man in his eighties, appeared. to British Tamil community groups to say that my book detailed “war crimes allegedly committed by members of the firm Keenie Meenie Services against civilians in Sri Lanka” which were “very serious allegations”. Battalion, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Colin Mitchell, who was known as “Mad Mitch” for his notorious brutal stance toward the local population. Both cases rely on the bravery of whistleblowers. The ministry shared the doctored image of alleged Australian war crimes in Afghanistan on Monday. He had risen impressively through the ranks, however he had made plenty of enemies. The Special Air Service Regiment, officially abbreviated SASR though commonly known as the SAS, is a special forces unit of the Australian Army.Formed in 1957, it was modelled on the British SAS sharing the motto, "Who Dares Wins". , a plain-clothed military unit that watched the IRA. Want an ad-free experience?Subscribe to Independent Premium. The British army said Cleary was shot while trying to escape, but Cleary’s family claim he was killed in cold blood. The ADF has a culture problem that, in its worst manifestation, leads to abuse and war crimes. The investigation, which is being led by the Metropolitan Police War Crimes Team, comes after the publication of a book by investigative The dead included 18-year-old student, Some respite came for Baty in February when, back in England, Peter Jordan was. My two colleagues started filming as I approached his front door and began to knock. The company had dozens of personnel in Sri Lanka, led by Brian Baty, with a liaison officer assigned to the Joint Operations Command, the apex of Sri Lanka’s military decision-making. Journal of Intelligence History 6, no. KMS reviewed the Sri Lankan military’s command structure and provided two former British special forces warrant officers: one as an operations room adviser and one as a psychological operations adviser. (Kabul, August 6, 2007), A woman in a white burqa enjoys an afternoon with her family feeding the white pigeons at the Blue Mosque. However, there has never been a UK government investigation into Baty’s command level responsibility for war crimes in Sri Lanka — or even his position as an accessory. Iraq war analysis: British troops relive a harrowing rescue mission in Basra - Duration: ... US-Trained Iraqi Forces Investigated for War Crimes - Duration: 6:07. The full truth about the extent of Baty’s dirty war in Sri Lanka is still to come out. Horsfall also expressed disgust at reports of civilian massacres from helicopters. Start your Independent Premium subscription today. For 14 months, the ABC Investigations team scrutinised shocking allegations of war crimes by Australian special forces in Afghanistan. Mr Stokes was a co-founder of the SAS Resources Fund, set up after the 1996 Black Hawk helicopter collision near Townsville in which 15 SASR members … This led a British diplomat in Sri Lanka to comment that KMS “have been drawn yet further into direct control of and participation in operations”. Brian Richard Mark Baty was born in south London in 1933. The year had a bumpy start when a KMS pilot was shot down near Jaffna and had to be rescued, triggering a protest from three of the company’s aviators who said “they were not here to be shot at”. Many of the alleged assassinations relate to a campaign of night raids designed to bring down the Taliban by capturing their leaders and taking them to detention centres for interrogation. ” while fighting Indonesian forces in Sarawak, Malaysia. There have been further allegations that SAS soldiers planted Russian Makarov pistols on victims' bodies and then took photos of the corpse as evidence that they had killed armed Taliban insurgents in self defence. Drone footage gathered by Operation Northmoor reportedly shows soldiers in British uniform opening fire, contradicting claims that the British army’s Afghan partners, who acted as backup and interpreters, were responsible for shooting civilians. Amid this turbulence, and perhaps because of it, Baty left the country. One of Thatcher’s special advisers had suggested that “this venture might be privatised” and soon after, KMS began its work in Sri Lanka in January 1984. The minister added: “I can assure you that the British Government will continue to press for truth, accountability and reconciliation in Sri Lanka.”. The policy, which would become a model for America’s “strategic hamlets” strategy in Vietnam, was brutally effective. Despite KMS and its partners being embroiled in war crimes, by December 1985, Baty was able to enjoy a private dinner with Jayewardene. Like all such documents, the Brereton report on alleged war crimes by SAS forces in Afghanistan changes nothing and changes everything. US Army Sargeant Jay Kenney (right), with Task Force Destiny, helps wounded Afghan National Army soldiers exit a Blackhawk helicopter after they have been rescued in an air mission. As Baty withdrew from the window muttering abuse at me, I asked: “Do you deny that KMS was involved in war crimes in Sri Lanka, under your watch?” There was no response. Special forces soldiers allegedly murdered Afghans during raids on their homes and then planted guns at the scene to make it appear as though they had been Taliban insurgents. Baty served in Aden as the intelligence officer for the Argyll’s 1. Local Sri Lankan security chiefs told my team that they believed this “nom de guerre” would hide Baty’s whereabouts from the IRA. In June 1986, when Smith attempted to distance himself from some of Fernando’s actions and refused to fly as the main pilot in the helicopter, Baty visited the Palaly air base and accused Smith of being disloyal to KMS. The pilots were paid and controlled by KMS Ltd “through a front company in the West Indies”, probably in the Cayman Islands. Ten SAS soldiers under investigation by war crimes investigators over 12 Afghan deaths By Nick McKenzie , Chris Masters and Anthony Galloway November 13, 2020 — 12.10am Although Baty was now safe from Irish Republicanism, the troops he oversaw continued to massacre Tamils. The IPKF pledged to disarm the Tamil factions, but the most autonomous group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), refused to accept either Indian or Sri Lankan authority and turned their guns on the Indian forces. “Bugger off my land, get out!” Baty shrieked back. (Kabul, March 1, 2002), A mother and her two children look out from their cave dwelling. (Kabul, February 9, 2009), An elderly man holds his granddaughter in their tent at a refugee camp after they were forced to flee their village, which US and NATO forces had bombed because, they claimed, it was a Taliban hideout. , Robin Horsfall to help with this task. With the ceasefire in tatters, KMS was in a strong position to help the Sinhalese side win the next stage of the war. Britain’s Sunday Times on the 2nd July 2017 published an article regarding a “rogue” SAS outfit that had murdered civilians in Afghanistan. Their first task had been to set up and train a Sri Lankan police commando unit, the Special Task Force (STF) at a military academy south of Colombo in Katukurunda, that was modelled on the SAS base in Herefordshire. The Royal Air Force was propping up the Sultan by strafing date gardens to “inconvenience” farmers, as well as bombing wells in rebellious villages, a. later described as “denial of water supply to selected villages by air action”. British detectives have now told Panorama that Special Forces tried to cover-up what happened to avoid being prosecuted for war crimes. However, the official obfuscation has continued, and multiple British diplomatic files about KMS have been destroyed or are being withheld from journalists. Although Baty was now safe from Irish Republicanism, the troops he oversaw continued to massacre Tamils. The next flash point came in 1967 in Aden (now part of Yemen), a British protectorate where an insurgent National Liberation Front (NLF) was demanding independence. Homes and crops were also destroyed, according to an investigation by Tamil human rights expert Dr N Malathy. (Kabul, March 22, 2015), {{#verifyErrors}} {{message}} {{/verifyErrors}} {{^verifyErrors}} {{message}} {{/verifyErrors}}, SAS 'suspected' of covering up potential war crimes against Afghans, SAS 'Blue Thunder' helicopter unit lands in London Bridge after attack, SAS in Iraq given 'kill list' of 200 British jihadis to take out, US soldiers wounded and Afghan killed in camp shooting, Trump gives Pentagon total authority over troop levels in Afghanistan, Soldiers 'must be compensated for false war crime claims'. (Kabul, November 21, 2014), Razima holds her two-year-old son, Malik, while waiting for medical attention at the Boost Hospital emergency room. His house was easily distinguished by a towering flagpole with a Union Jack fluttering on the front lawn, and a car with his personalised number plate parked on the driveway. Follow us on. By January 1985, Baty had started working for KMS from a base in the Sri Lankan capital of Colombo, where he used the alias Ken Whyte. Despite this sympathetic rhetoric, in reality the Foreign Office continues to cover for Baty. British government officials were aware of this, but said that they were not concerned that KMS “may be involved backstage in the operations room in Colombo”. We have known ever more of … He left school at 14 and joined the British Army’s Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, a notoriously tough Scottish infantry regiment, in 1951. They ignored my concerns. Crucially, they noted that the STF was operating in unmarked cars and wearing plain clothes.