The truth about SAS shoot-to-kill night raids, by the hero of 200 secret ops: Soldier breaks ranks to defend elite unit from witch-hunt but says illegal killings were ‘unwritten rule of our job’

An SAS soldier has sensationally lifted the lid on the elite regiment’s controversial shoot-to-kill policy in Afghanistan – the subject of a multi-million pound investigation by military police.

In the first media interview with any SAS member to take part in operations included in the war crimes probe, the former trooper admitted to The Mail on Sunday that illegal killings were ‘an unwritten rule of our job’ but strongly defended the regiment’s actions.

His gripping account of top-secret night operations in Afghanistan comes after claims emerged that SAS members had killed unarmed civilians in cold blood and falsified mission reports.

Pictured: Afghan and Western Special Forces in Helmand Province Afghanistan fighting the Taliban. A former SAS soldier has admitted to The Mail on Sunday that illegal killings were "an unwritten rule of our job" but strongly defended the regiment"s actions

The shocking allegations emerged as part of an investigation by the Royal Military Police (RMP) codenamed Operation Northmoor.

The battled-hardened soldier told how the central claims levelled against the SAS were flawed. He said:

•  Unarmed Afghans were routinely killed but only after high-level intelligence confirmed their identity as Taliban commanders rather than civilians;

• Over a single year, the SAS’s D and G squadrons killed more than 600 enemy fighters, some of whom could have been captured. The soldier insisted there was no point taking prisoners because they would be released days after being handed over to the Afghan police;

•  In exceptional circumstances SAS troops did plant weapons on the bodies of unarmed Taliban commanders who had been killed – one of the central accusations levelled at the SAS – but said it was the only way they would be believed, even after gathering huge amounts of high-tech evidence to prove they were terrorists;

• The SAS has also been accused of falsifying reports to make it appear friendly Afghan troops had shot Taliban fighters, rather than Special Forces soldiers. He admitted this happened but said it was because they had been ordered to exaggerate the involvement of the Afghan National Army for political reasons.

Speaking exclusively to this newspaper on condition of anonymity, the soldier revealed how he took part in 200 night raids between 2010 and 2013, many investigated as potential war crimes by the RMP.

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