Making troops accountable for war crimes threatens US alliance, ex-SAS colonel warns

A former Special Air Service (SAS) colonel says holding troops accountable over war crimes could wreck the UK/US alliance. SAS troops are currently under investigation for extrajudicial killings in Afghanistan. The same report re-heated fake claims about a ‘witch-hunt’ against British troops.

These kinds of claims about UK troops being ‘harassed’ for ‘doing their jobs’ have been bandied about for over a decade — usually by the hard-right press. This time it is the Daily Telegraph… again. Needless to say, committing war crimes is not the ‘job’ of British troops — though they certainly have committed them abundantly in the past.

The British state has spent serious time, effort and deviousness to make sure that it — and, by extension, British soldiers — are protected over allegations of war crimes. Two bills were even passed to that end. One covers the so-called Irish Troubles. The other deals with the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

The Telegraph also claimed — without evidence — that special forces troops would leave their jobs in substantial numbers.

Lt Col Richard Williams, the former commanding officer of the SAS, said on 22 April that the supposed resignations were a “national security” matter:

The Americans bring scale, resources, helicopters, drones. We bring highly trained personnel. If that capability is diminished, it affects not just us but the wider alliance… It is putting national security at risk.

The Ireland bill is currently being repealed and replaced. Various outlandish claims about veterans being ‘witch-hunted’ have been made over the years. None of them stand up to scrutiny.

The SAS and lawfare conspiracism

Williams has previously claimed that Iranian intelligence had fed intelligence to UK legal firms as an act of ‘lawfare’ or legal warfare. The Centre for Military Justice (CMJ) and two former senior British Army officers seem to think this amounts to an evidence-free conspiracy theory:

There is of course no evidence for this assertion, which would be laughable if the context was not so serious.

Adding:

We have been here many times before. Evidence-based reasoning is entirely absent from this ground-hog day debate. We now live in an age of accountability. That is a good thing, although it may be difficult and painful.

They concluded:

Respect for the law and human rights would have prevented atrocities from Londonderry to Basra as well as inside the darker parts of the Army that some would prefer to remain hidden.

As the Canary has previously reported, simply making up claims of a witch hunt to stoke fear and moral outrage among ex-military personnel is a political tactic. Hard-right political party Reform UK has even tried their hand at it lately.

CMJ said in July 2025:

There have been just six prosecutions brought against veterans since the Good Friday Agreement, more than 25 years ago. There has been just ONE conviction. That is not a witch-hunt.

Over 300,000 British troops served in the so-called Troubles. By no serious measure can six prosecutions and a single conviction be seen as a witch-hunt.

CMJ director Emma Norton added:

Protesters and political actors must stop stoking the fears of the veteran community. It is irresponsible to encourage veterans to live in perpetual fear of getting a knock at the door and activists should not be pouring fuel on the fire of elderly men’s fears.

The current inquiry into alleged SAS killings in Afghanistan is still underway amid allegations of a cover-up by senior officers. Yet it seems some figures want to portray this basic accountability process as a conspiracy to harass soldiers and veterans — before the inquiry has reported a single finding.

British troops are subject to the law. They are trained to abide by it — even when they are Special Forces. Accountability processes may be long, slow, messy and partial, but they exist for a reason. Operating in line with domestic and international law is not too heavy a burden.

It is wrong-headed and dangerous to say otherwise. And anyone putting forward this view immediately comes across as if they want to be above the law.

Featured image via the Canary

By Joe Glenton

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