Years after media revelations, Australia officially admitted Thursday (November 19th) to have “unlawfully killed” at least 39 non-combatant civilians in Afghanistan. “To the people of Afghanistan, on behalf of the Australian Defense Force, I sincerely and wholeheartedly apologize for any wrongdoing by Australian soldiers,” said General Angus Campbell, Australia’s top military official.
“Some patrols have flouted the law, rules have been broken, stories made up, lies told and prisoners killed,” added the Australian army chief. The 25 special forces members accused of mischief in 23 incidents have left a “stain” on their regiment, the armed forces and Australia, he added, recommending war crimes prosecutions.
A “shameful record”
“This shameful death toll includes suspected cases in which new patrol members were forced to shoot a prisoner in order to carry out their first murder, in a appalling practice known as ‘blooding’,” the general also noted. Campbell. He also called for the revocation of certain medals awarded to special operations forces who served in Afghanistan between 2007 and 2013.
After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, more than 26,000 Australian soldiers in uniform were sent to Afghanistan to fight alongside American and Allied forces against the Taliban, Al Qaeda and other Islamist groups. Australian combat troops left the country in 2013, but since then a series of often brutal accounts have emerged about the conduct of elite Special Forces units.
Pressure on whistleblowers
And since then, the Australian media have reported on a number of very serious accusations against Australian forces, such as the case of a man allegedly shot down to make room in a helicopter, or that of a child. six-year-old killed in a raid on a house. The government had initially sought to shut down the accounts of whistleblowers reporting these accusations, while the police attacked investigative journalists relaying them.
The affair erupted in 2017, when public broadcaster ABC published the “Afghan files”, a series of investigations that accused Australian forces of killing unarmed men and children in Afghanistan. The police responded by opening an investigation into two ABC journalists, Daniel Oakes and Sam Clark, suspected of having had classified information in their possession. A search had even taken place last year at the headquarters of the chain in Sydney, before the investigation was closed.
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