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Daily Mail
27-06-2025
- Daily Mail
ROBERT HARDMAN: The staggering naivety of armchair warrior judge, as reconstruction exposes flaws in controversial SAS legal ruling
Standing on the very spot where it all happened, I am trying to envisage being part of that SAS unit who were lying just behind a low hedge here in February 1992. Three cars and a lorry full of gun-toting IRA terrorists have just screeched to a halt in front of you, the gun barrel of their Russian-built 'Dushka' heavy machine gun still hot from perforating a police station. At which point, according to a senior British judge, there was only one correct and legal course of action. The SAS commanding officer should have stood up and declared: 'Hands up! Put down your weapons. You are all under arrest.' Is it any wonder that British Special Forces veterans now warn that soldiers are more at risk from 'lawfare' than warfare? As I retrace the events of that night in slow motion, in the company of someone who knows that operation as well as anyone, I begin to despair of the creeping judicial over-reach that has now replaced common sense with legalistic wishful thinking. Short of issuing instructions that the correct way to handle a charging elephant is with a pea shooter or that the appropriate response to a great white shark is to poke it in the eye, I cannot think of a more naive idea than the solution by Mr Justice Humphreys, presiding coroner for Northern Ireland, for disarming nine men pointing a heavy machine gun at your face. Yet it is no joke. As a result, the judge has handed down a ruling at Northern Ireland's Coroner's Court which now casts serious doubt on the way in which the British state defends itself from future enemies. All is tranquil at Clonoe chapel these days, the scene little changed except that the original hedge has vanished beneath an extension to the car park. The SAS did indeed come here that night with the aim of capturing the East Tyrone Brigade of the IRA red-handed in the act of preparing an attack, though they were ready for every eventuality. And events did not go to plan. The terrorists suddenly drove in already fully armed, their headlights exposing the soldiers lying on the ground. In that split second, the commanding officer had no idea if they had been spotted. Should he gamble his men's lives by waiting to find out? Moments later, four IRA men lay dead with one injured and four more escaping. The IRA, Sinn Fein and the families of the dead now want this treated as a crime against humanity. So, 33 years on, and with £1.3million of taxpayers' money already spent on a 'legacy inquest', those SAS soldiers must wait to see if they are to be prosecuted for murder. That is because Sir Michael Humphreys (to give him his full title) has sent a file to the Director of Public Prosecutions having ruled that the SAS were in breach of the Human Rights Act – which did not even exist at the time. Both the Ministry of Defence and the veterans have now demanded a judicial review of the judge's decision. Sinn Fein has described any quibbling with Sir Michael's wisdom as 'disgraceful' and 'a cynical attempt to deny families truth and justice'. You do not have to probe very far to realise it would, in fact, be 'disgraceful' to let his verdict stand. For, as we reveal today, it contains multiple flaws, starting with Sir Michael's assertion that the troops had staged an 'ambush' with no serious intention of making arrests. He bases this on the fact that 'the terminology of "ambush" appears frequently in both RUC and MOD documents'. However, as both soldiers and police from that era tell me, there is a world of difference between military jargon and a legalistic dictionary definition. 'If this had been a proper ambush then it should be in every military textbook under the heading: "How not to stage an ambush",' says one senior veteran of covert operations in Northern Ireland. 'If this really had been an ambush, you would have had at least three machine guns covering what would be called "the killing zone". 'This operation had one machine gun and no "killing zone". If it really had been an SAS ambush, there is no way half of them would get away. They'd all be dead.' Moreover, 'ambush' was a general term for catching all forms of criminality. 'We used to go on border patrols to catch people smuggling cattle and butter,' says a former RUC officer of the period. 'We'd talk about a "butter ambush" or a "cattle ambush". It didn't mean we shot the cattle or opened fire on the butter.' What irks the veterans even more is the judge's flat insistence that the terrorists never fired a single shot at the SAS. The ruling makes much of the fact that the dead IRA men were found with both the 'Dushka' machine gun and their AKM (Kalashnikov) rifles switched to 'safe' mode. 'There is no evidence of any AKM weapon being fired in an exchange of gunfire,' the judge declares. 'I find, as a matter of fact, that no member of the Provisional IRA unit opened fire at the Clonoe chapel car park.' To which the response of many veterans is simply unprintable. First, even if all the guns really were in 'safe' mode, there is no way the soldiers could have known that was the case. Just minutes earlier they heard the whole lot blasting away, both at the local police station and again, en route to the car park, while firing a salute over the house of a dead IRA man. Second, the veterans argue that the weapons could easily have been switched to 'safe' as a matter of routine by the hordes of police, fireman, regular soldiers and other first responders crawling over the site. Sir Michael states: 'I have no doubt that this would have been recorded.' Not so, say the soldiers. In particular, one familiar with the 'Dushka' points out that it is a very complicated process to make it safe, requiring at least five separate movements which would be extremely difficult while clinging on to the back of a lorry careering round sharp corners. Of much greater concern is the miraculous wound suffered by the one SAS casualty that night. As 'Soldier H' jumped up from behind the hedge, he was shot in the face by a bullet which went in cleanly above his upper lip and out through his cheek. In his verdict, Sir Michael states: 'He was struck by a ricocheted bullet fired by one of his colleagues.' Again, SAS veterans shake their heads. 'You only need to see the photo of the wound to realise that this was not a ricochet,' says George Simm, SAS Regimental Sergeant-Major at the time. 'If it was, it must be the first case of a ricochet coming back at 180 degrees but with a nice neat hole.' A bullet rebounding off a hard object he says is usually an irregular shape, 'makes a hell of a mess' and very often does not exit at all. 'Besides, we were using armour-piercing rounds. What would they have been ricocheting from?' Then there is the unanswered question of the guns that got away in the two IRA cars which escaped. One car was abandoned a mile away next to the local Gaelic football stadium. The gang set it ablaze before fleeing. When the fire brigade arrived, they were pushed back by a mob who had suddenly appeared in order to ensure that any evidence was burned to a crisp. However, the report acknowledges two findings. First, all the car seats were folded down except the driver's, as would happen if a machine gunner was operating in the back. Second, a clip from a belt of machine gun ammunition was still in the car. Might this explain why four soldiers reported seeing distinct 'muzzle flashes' from the IRA? The verdict also makes repeated mention of IRA men being shot when they 'posed no threat to anyone'. Once again, the veterans suggest that this is pure guesswork by a judge-turned-tactical commander sitting at a desk three decades after the event. 'You shoot until you perceive there is no further threat and that is when you stop,' says Mr Simm, citing the occasion where he had his gun pointing at a gang who had just shot his commanding officer. As they raised their hands in the air, he did not open fire. 'Just remember this,' he says. 'The SAS arrested more IRA terrorists than they killed in Northern Ireland.' These are just few of the reasons why the SAS veterans feel that the Clonoe inquest is a turning point. Of much greater concern is the judge's overall verdict that the soldiers did not have 'an honest belief' that they needed to shoot. Perhaps more alarming still was his pronouncement that 'the operation was not planned and controlled in such a way as to minimise to the greatest extent possible the need for recourse to lethal force'. If that is now the official benchmark by which Britain's Special Forces are to operate, say the veterans, then we must take the judge at his word. Commanding officers must now make it very clear to new recruits that the most effective way to 'minimise' the possibility of killing our enemies 'to the greatest extent possible', is to avoid going anywhere near them in the first place. And whatever you do, please don't shoot. In short, the SAS set out that night to apprehend a gang assembling a gun. The judge disputes this and also says their lives were not at risk. So let us leave the final word to the IRA. In their official statement the following day, the East Tyrone Brigade 'acknowledged with pride' that four of their men had 'died gallantly in action' during 'an IRA operation'. For the avoidance of doubt, walk a few yards round the corner from the Clonoe chapel car park to the IRA plaque on the wall honouring the dead men. There is no mention of an ambush, of foul play or subterfuge. It states clearly: 'Killed On Active Service.'
Daily Mail
07-06-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mail
EXCLUSIVE Taliban uses former SAS base as test site to build kamikaze drone 'air force' 'capable of striking beyond country's borders'
The Taliban are using a former SAS base to develop an 'air force' of kamikaze drones capable of striking well beyond their country's borders, the Mail can reveal. Used by British special forces during the UK's two decades in Afghanistan, the base in Logar Province is now the main test site for the deadly fleet. To the alarm of Western security agencies, more than three years after seizing back power in Afghanistan, the brutal Taliban regime has recruited international experts to produce hundreds of drones. They include an engineer suspected of links to Osama Bin Laden's terror group Al Qaeda and a specialist said to have studied in the UK, the Mail can reveal. The drones are being constructed at another former base, Camp Phoenix which was a major US hub for logistics and training Afghan troops during the war with the Taliban in which 457 British servicemen and women lost their lives. Troops at Pheonix, near the capital Kabul, had a cinema, library, coffee shop, post office and a 'British pub'. After the chaotic exodus from Afghanistan in 2021, masses of abandoned military hardware was studied by the Taliban's engineers. It is unclear if components of the drones were among the arsenal of equipment left behind, but the Mail can reveal the base now houses a secretive production line for unmanned warplanes. A number of test flights of 'suicide' or 'kamikaze' warplanes that explode on impact with their targets have been successfully carried out at the former SAS base in Logar Province, south of Kabul, intelligence sources say. Some were used recently in an attack on the border area of Pakistan. The Taliban developers are said to be copying several drone models - including the MQ9 Reaper, an American system, and the Shahed 136 which is Iranian. Both are said to have been supplied by Tehran to Moscow and used in Ukraine. They are also believed to have been used by Iran during recent attacks on Israel. The Taliban's engineers – several of whom studied at Kabul University's faculty of engineering during the two decades British and US forces were in Afghanistan - are looking to increase both the distance they can travel and the size of the explosive 'payloads'. Intelligence sources revealed the Taliban drone development programme had been in place for at least two years and that its 'capability is expanding significantly.' Sources say that the Taliban has recently 'showcased' the growing drone programme to potential partners and customers in Afghanistan that included demonstration flights. The project will concern Western intelligence agencies as the notoriously-primitive Taliban seeks to develop sophisticated drones capable of attacking enemies beyond its borders. The alarm will be further heightened by the involvement of an engineer with links to Al Qaeda - whose figurehead Bin Laden plotted the 9/11 atrocity from his bolthole in Afghanistan which triggered the 20-year military campaign by the US and UK. One source claimed the Al Qaeda engineer once studied in the UK. Al Qaeda and other terrorist training camps are said to have returned to Afghanistan since the Taliban regained control in August 2021. The engineers are considered 'prized assets' by the Taliban and have been assigned personal bodyguards. It emerged recently an Afghan drone technician who helped MI6 spy on the Taliban has been forced to live his life on the run after the UK refused to give him sanctuary. Described as 'potentially a prized asset' to the Taliban, the Afghan is said to have worked for MI6 from 2017, at first helping to intercept Taliban phonecalls, before flying drones alongside British agents. After western forces left the country in 2021 he was approached by the Taliban, who tried to recruit him because his skills were deemed to be so valuable. He turned them down and applied for relocation to the UK but has twice been refused and is appealing the case from hiding. One source said: 'With his expertise, he would be an easy fit for the drone programme which is why the Taliban have been looking for him over many months. He has knowledge of many of the types of drone under development.' The Iranian version of the MQ9 Reaper can currently fly at heights up to 24,000ft at speeds of 130mph while carrying a bomb up to 660lb which the Taliban's engineers have been asked to increase. Dubbed the 'hunter-killer' because of its ability for intelligence gathering and surveillance of a target prior to attack, it is remotely piloted. The US version has been successfully used against Taliban targets. The Shahed 136 is cheap to build and can be used to devastating effect as a kamikaze drone. It can fly low, at speeds up to 115mph, and travel distances of 1,200 miles before exploding on targets. It has been extensively used by Russia in Ukraine to devastating effect. It is also been used by Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen during attacks on shipping and during attacks on Israel. Taliban engineers are experimenting with different quantities of explosives, detonation techniques and means of launch. According to intelligence officials, expertise from Turkey, China, Russia, Belarus and Bangladesh is being drawn on, for the drone programme. Intelligence sources say a Russian is working closely with the drone programme and has accompanied the Taliban engineers on fact-finding trips to other countries working developing drones. Drone components have been purchased in China and Turkey, the sources said.
BBC News
23-05-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
One Special Forces officer blocked 1,585 Afghans from settling in UK
A UK Special Forces officer personally rejected 1,585 resettlement applications from Afghans with credible links to British commandos, newly released documents files, disclosed by the Ministry of Defence in court on Thursday, show the unnamed UKSF officer rejected every application referred to him in the summer of 2023, in what was described as a "sprint".The MoD told the court that the officer may have been connected to the ongoing inquiry into alleged war crimes committed by the admission comes after the BBC revealed last week that the UKSF officer – who previously served in Afghanistan rejected the applications from Afghans who may have witnessed the alleged war crimes. Afghan commandos, known as the Triples, supported the SAS and SBS for years in Afghanistan and were in danger of reprisal after the Taliban seized back the country in thousands of UK resettlement applications containing credible links to the Triples were rejections came at a time when a public inquiry in the UK had begun investigating allegations that British special forces had committed war crimes on operations in Afghanistan where the Triples were the Afghan commandos were in the UK, they could be called as witnesses - but the inquiry has no power to compel testimony from foreign nationals who are officials raised concerns as early as October 2022 about the role of the UKSF in rejecting applications with links to the Triples units, the new documents a witness statement submitted to court, Natalie Moore, the head of the UK's Afghan resettlement team, wrote that she became concerned the UKSF was applying a practice of "automatic rejections" with regard to Triples, giving rise to the "appearance of an unpublished mass rejection policy".In January 2024, following the BBC's revelation of the existence of a UKSF veto over applications, then-Veterans Minister Johnny Mercer warned senior cabinet ministers in writing of a "significant conflict of interest that should be obvious to all".The veto gave the UKSF "decision-making power over... potential witnesses to the inquiry", Mercer said, calling the arrangement "deeply inappropriate".In the same letter, Mercer said that he had seen evidence that five former Triples had been killed by the Taliban after their resettlement applications were rejected. And in a meeting with Ms Moore, he highlighted a case in which an applicant was rejected having "previously confronted UKSF leadership about EJKs [extrajudicial killings] in Afghanistan".Despite concerns first being raised internally in October 2022 - and again between October 2023 and January 2024 - in March 2024 the MoD denied to both the BBC and Parliament that UKSF had had a veto over the former commandos' applications. The Triples - so-called because their designations were CF 333 and ATF 444 - were set up, trained, and paid by the UKSF. When Afghanistan fell to the Taliban, they were judged to be in grave danger of reprisal and were entitled to apply for resettlement to the more than 2,000 applications judged by resettlement caseworkers to have credible evidence were subsequently rejected by the MoD later announced a review of more than 2,000 rejected applications after finding that the decisions were "not robust". Earlier this week, Armed Forces Minster Luke Pollard announced a new phase of the review to take into account up to 2,500 further cases which may have been improperly of the former Triples who were denied visas have since been tortured and killed by the Taliban, according to testimony from former colleagues, family members and documents disclosed in court on Thursday, as part of a judicial review case brought by a former member of the Triples, reveal that the government launched two investigations that examined the actions of the UKSF and the allegations of a conflict of interest at the heart of the Triples rejections.A summary of one of those investigations, known as Operation X, said it "did not obtain any evidence of hidden motives on the part of the UKSF liaison officer" and found "no evidence of automatic/instant/mass rejections" of the Triples by the UKSF - but provided no evidence to back up those instead concluded that the more than 2,000 rejections of Triples were down to "slack and unprofessional verification processes" by the UKSF liaison officer and "lax procedures followed by the officer in not following up on all lines of enquiry before issuing rejections". More than 600 of those rejections have since been Panorama reported recently that the rejection of the Triples applications had been overseen by Gen Jenkins, who was head of the UKSF at the time and was promoted last week to be the head of the Royal the court documents, the MoD said that Gen Jenkins had no involvement with the applications and that he had not appointed the UKSF officer who rejected de la Mare KC, representing the former Triple who brought the case, accused the MoD of breaching its duty of candour in the case by failing to disclose evidence of a blanket practice of rejection of the Triples further accused the MoD of providing misleading responses to requests for information. Cathryn McGahey KC, representing the MoD, told the court she did "not seek to excuse or underplay in any way the provision of inaccurate answers", and she apologised for the fact that the MoD had previously told the court that no veto case is examining whether the review of the rejected Triples applications was conducted in a lawful manner. Ms McGahey told the court that "there might have been a better way of doing it, but that doesn't make it unlawful".Daniel Carey, partner at DPG, the law firm acting on behalf of the former Triples, said: "My client spent years asking the MoD to rectify the blanket refusals of Triples personnel and has seen many killed and harmed by the Taliban in that time."He is pleased that the MoD have agreed to inform everyone of the decisions in their cases and to tell the persons affected whether their cases are under review or not, but it should not have required litigation to achieve basic fairness."
The National
23-05-2025
- The National
UK minister Al Carns brushes off Nepali investigation into speedy Everest climb
A British defence minister has dismissed claims that he is being investigated by the Nepali government for his use of xenon gas to speed up his ascent of Mount Everest. Al Carns, a Royal Marines reservist, reached the summit of Everest in five days with a group of former British special forces soldiers on Wednesday. The ascent usually takes two months because climbers stop for long periods to acclimatise to the high altitude. However, Mr Carns said he and his group were aided by xenon gas, which prevents altitude sickness. While the achievement impressed many climbers, it was criticised by the Nepali government who said they were investigating. Department of Tourism director Himal Gautam, who oversees mountaineering expeditions, said on Thursday that it had not been informed of the gas use. 'We have launched an investigation into the matter,' he told the Kathmandu Post. He added that all climbers and operators must declare the equipment, medications and substances used during expeditions. Mr Carns denied he was under investigation by the Nepali government, telling The Telegraph that he and his climbing group had inhaled the xenon in Germany weeks before arriving in Nepal. He believed the controversy was triggered by rumours that the climbers had used the gas during the ascent. He said this issue had been cleared with the Ministry of Tourism. 'There's no way I'm under investigation,' he said. He told BirminghamLive that the trail to the summit was strewn with the dead bodies of climbers. 'It brought it home, this was the death zone,' he said. Lukas Furtenbach, founder of Furtenbach Adventures which organised the climb, told The National he had not been contacted by the Nepali government about an investigation. 'There was no breach of any Nepali regulation. What happens outside Nepal should not be under the purview of the Nepal government,' he said. The gas was banned for athletes by the Worldwide Anti-Doping Agency in 2014, but this does not apply to mountaineers. The International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation warned against the use of xenon when the expedition was announced in January. 'There is no evidence that breathing in xenon improves performance in the mountains, and inappropriate use can be dangerous,' it wrote in a statement. "Acclimatisation to altitude is a complex process that affects the various organs/systems such as the brain, lungs, heart, kidneys and blood to different degrees, and is not fully understood," the statement said, adding that the drug was "rarely" used in medicine. Mr Furtenbach said other gases, such as oxygen and asthma sprays, were also banned by the anti-doping agency but were critical to Mount Everest expeditions. 'If the government is considering banning xenon, also all other medical aids like oxygen or altitude medicine must be banned. This is obviously not possible,' he said. Nepali officials have also raised concerns about the impact on tourism if the drug becomes widely used. 'Traditional expeditions employ Sherpas, porters, guides and kitchen staff for weeks, sometimes months,' Dambar Parajuli, president of the Expedition Operators Association of Nepal, told The Kathmandu Post. 'If climbers finish their journey in days, the ripple effect on local employment will be devastating.' Mr Furtenbach believes widespread use of xenon could make climbing safer and reduce the environmental damage that the popular expeditions are causing to Mount Everest. 'A shorter expedition also means less garbage, less resources, less human waste in this sensitive environment,' he said. He added that Nepali guides involved in his tours would not see a reduction in salary or jobs. 'We pay them for three months in the season, even when our clients are here only for one week,' he said.
Times
22-05-2025
- Health
- Times
Alistair Carns' Everest climb using xenon gas is under scrutiny
The veterans minister has denied claims that he is being investigated by the Nepalese government after using a gas that helped him reach the summit of Mount Everest in six days. It had emerged that Alistair Carns and three other former British special forces soldiers who climbed Everest on Wednesday were going to be summoned by the Nepalese government after using xenon gas. Carns, 45, a Royal Marine reservist who spent 24 years in the military before turning to politics, Garth Miller, Anthony Stazicker and Kev Godlington were part of the expedition that was the first commercial ascent to use the gas in pre-expedition treatments. The method is believed to accelerate red blood cell production and reduce the need for the usual long acclimatisation. Typically,
