British special forces global covert operations in violation of international law

Recent reports in the UK legacy media have detailed the arrest of five Special Air Service soldiers (SAS) in the UK on suspicion of war crimes committed in Syria - following the death of a suspected jihadist.

The soldiers remain on active duty and are claiming that the individual posed a threat and “intended to carry out a suicide” attack. The incident is alleged to have taken place two years ago.

Unsurprisingly the Ministry of Defence would not comment on the investigation but a spokesperson said:

“We hold our personnel to the highest standards and any allegations of wrongdoing are taken seriously. Where appropriate, any criminal allegations are referred to the service police for investigation.”

In The Guardian there was the admission that:

“..the SAS has been actively deployed in Syria for the past decade, engaged covertly in the fight against Islamic State and supporting the Syrian Democratic Forces, Kurdish allies of the west based in the north-east of the country.” (emphasis added)

The Telegraph claims that “members of the SAS have been deployed to support the Syrian Democratic Forces and to push back against Islamic State.”

Their role has been focused on identifying targets on the ground for RAF aircraft, including Reaper drones and Typhoons, to attack.

Who are the real targets for these forces? ISIS or the Syrian Arab Army allied military fighting US-backed-ISIS on Syrian soil?

An RAF source has told The Times that the “role of the SAS has recently changed in a drive to identify Iranian-backed militia smuggling weapons across the region and into Lebanon” (emphasis added)

If true, this would effectively mean that the present SAS role is to impede collaboration of Resistance factions in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and potentially Palestine - in defence of Israel. Thus enabling the genocide that the Zionist regime is conducting against Palestinians in Gaza and the Occupied Territories, in particular West Bank.

It would also suggest that the potential role of the SAS is to prevent rearming of the official armed forces of Iraq and Syria that are genuinely fighting ISIS on their territories - the PMU and the Syrian Arab Army.

Of course, UK Government officials will not comment. The director of special forces, the SAS’s most senior officer, is directly accountable to both the Defence Secretary and the Prime Minister. Neither would comment on the SAS current role in Syria.

As Ben Wallace said in September 2020: “They [UKSF] are accountable to me and to the law, and where we see any issues, Ministers will of course intervene”.

From a 2023 report by Action on Armed Violence:

In 2022, after years of legal battles, a public inquiry into alleged misconduct by British Special Forces during the Afghanistan war has moved closer to becoming a reality. The inquiry, led by Lord Justice Haddon-Cave, aims to investigate claims of unlawful killings and mistreatment of detainees and recommend measures to prevent similar incidents in future conflicts. This inquiry is a crucial step towards accountability and transparency in British military operations overseas, ensuring the protection of human rights. The findings could have broader implications, triggering compensation claims, discussions about the military’s role in foreign conflicts, and the need for oversight and accountability of Special Forces regiments.

I asked former UK Ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford, for a comment on the arrest of the SAS soldiers:

The last several days has brought news, courtesy of an embarrassing German leak, of British forces being on the ground in Ukraine helping the Ukrainians fire missiles at Russia, as well as news of the British air force yet again pounding Yemen with bombs. It comes therefore almost as relief to learn that in Syria British special forces have only been killing a few unarmed civilians, allegedly.

It had long been surmised that British forces were indeed in Syria helping groups opposed to the legitimate government, but the British government had never admitted it, presumably because it knew that the uninvited presence of the troops was illegal under international law. So thanks only to legal proceedings in a related case making it inevitable for the truth to come out, we have now proof that the British troops were there, in breach of international law. And apparently behaving in true imperialistic fashion, killing natives.

We are told that the mission of the troops was to curb the activities of ISIS. In reality we know, however, that the main purpose has been to bolster, alongside the Americans, the little Kurdish-dominated regime in North East Syria and prevent the reunification of the country after long conflict spurred on by Western interventions. The area in question is particularly important because it holds most of Syria's energy and grain resources and depriving the rest of Syria of access to those resources plays to the US/UK/EU agenda of impoverishing Syria in hopes of fomenting further trouble for the government.

If we look at the squalid history of UK interference in Syria including their extensive media and propaganda complex designed to support and whitewash the so-called “moderate rebels” - it should be very clear that the UK was not in Syria to fight ISIS. Like their partners in the US/UK-led alliance the purpose was to encourage any element that might prove successful in overthrowing the Syrian government and presidency.

Hidden from public view is the fact that the UK regime is funding the ISIS holding camps in south-east Syria where the US and Kurdish Contra proxies occupy, steal and trade Syrian oil and agricultural resources.

According to a report in Defense One - the effort will double in size the current facility at Hasakah, a series of three converted school buildings that holds roughly 5,000 prisoners, according to British Army Maj. Gen. Kevin Copsey, the coalition’s deputy commander for strategy.

A British Ministry of Defense spokesperson confirmed that the U.K. is funding the Hasakah effort, which Copsey called “quite a significant expansion.”

The irony again concealed by UK media synched with UK FCDO agendas in Syria - in 2019 two SAS soldiers were injured by an ISIS missile attack in north-east Syria. This while the SAS was allegedly supporting the US alliance-backed Kurdish Contras or SDF as they are commonly known. The irony is that UK forces allied with the US in Syria were targeted by a US proxy yet no outrage ever made it to public attention.

In March 2020 “Two RAF Chinook helicopters packed with special forces troops and medics swooped in to save a wounded SAS soldier in Syria”

A report in the Mirror:

The casualty was airlifted from deep inside the warzone to a medical facility in Erbil in neighbouring Iraq, where he is thought to be in a stable condition.

The crack troop is understood to have been injured in an IED explosion just days ago and was initially airlifted to Al Tanf, a remote US base.

The choppers took off from RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus and flew through Israeli airspace and northern Jordan to evacuate him from southern Syria.

A video surfaced last year showing US and British (presumably special forces) training the extremist “rebels” in the aforementioned illegal US military base in Al Tanf on the border with Jordan. This base and the adjacent Rukban refugee camp are known to be training and recruitment hubs for illegal armed groups that include ISIS. Recent ISIS attacks against the Syrian Arab Army and civilians have emanated from Al Tanf.

Action on Armed Violence Report

A fairly comprehensive list of SAS operations in Syria has been recorded by the AOAV that includes, from 2015:

July: An additional 20 SAS soldiers flew into Saudi Arabia to prepare a training system in which the UK will instruct hundreds of members of the Syrian Moderate Opposition. (Express)

Troops were also reported to have ‘frequently crossed into Syria from their base in Jordan to assist the New Syrian Army’ in the southeastern Syrian village of al-Tanf, f. It was reported that British special forces had provided training, weapons and other equipment to the New Syrian Army since 2015. (Times) (emphasis added)

From 2018:

March: SAS soldier, Matt Tonroe, was killed alongside a US commando in friendly fire incident was originally blamed on roadside bomb) – part of the fight against IS. Manbij, northern Syria. (Times)

The SAS is illegally in Syria. Questions must be asked if the SAS is illegally in Ukraine, Israel or any other war theatre where the UK is claiming “no boots on the ground”

A report by AOAV in 2023 highlighted the following:

Executive Summary: This analysis of credible English-language news reports reveals that Britain’s Special Forces, UKSF, have been deployed operationally in at least 19 countries, regions or territories and involved in missions in several others in the past decade, raising questions over the level of transparency and democratic oversight these shadowy units operate under. The UKSF operates distinctively from the rest of the British military, and despite being accountable to the Defence Secretary and Prime Minister, there is no parliamentary oversight or mechanism to conduct retrospective reviews. There have been several controversies associated with the UKSF, including assassinations, alleged cover-ups, deniability outsourcing, fighting alongside child soldiers, and friendly fire incidents. Calls have been made for greater transparency and oversight by various MPs and committees.

Mapping of national and international credible newspapers, undertaken by research charity Action on Armed Violence, shows that, since 2011, UK Special Forces (UKSF) have been primed to contact or surveil hostile forces in Algeria, Estonia, France, Iran/Oman (Strait of Hormuz), Iraq, Kenya, Libya, Mali, Mediterranean (Cyprus), Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen.

How are these operations funded? To what degree is the British public even aware that they are ongoing?

There are a further six sites where UKSF have trained foreign forces or where they have based themselves before launching into another country. These are: Burkina Faso, Oman, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Djibouti. There are also another seven locations, not included in the above lists, known to be used by UKSF for their own exercises and engagements. These are: Albania, Falklands, Gibraltar, Belize, Brunei, Malaysia, and Canada, although there are likely to be far more.

In addition, the UKSF operate in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. These four countries are not included.

The AOAV research concludes that reported UK Special Forces (UKSF) missions in Ukraine, Syria, Yemen, the Strait of Hormuz between Iran and Oman and Libya demonstrate that British soldiers are regularly sent to engage in international conflicts without any parliamentary approval around UK involvement beforehand.

In the case of Syria, parliament explicitly voted against sending in troops in 2013. Yet there have been dozens of UKSF missions reported in the press in the past decade.

It’s been reported that units like the Special Air Service (SAS) have been behind: the deliberate assassination of British citizens in Iraq and Syria, the alleged cover-up of multiple killings of innocent Afghan civilians, including children, outsourcing UKSF operatives to MI6 to ensure deniability of kill-or-capture missions in Yemen.

Dr Iain Overton, Executive Director of AOAV, said of the report:

“The extensive deployment of Britain’s Special Forces in numerous countries over the past decade raises serious concerns about transparency and democratic oversight. The lack of parliamentary approval and retrospective reviews for these missions is deeply troubling. Controversies surrounding the UKSF, including assassinations and alleged cover-ups, highlight the urgent need for greater transparency and accountability. The ongoing public inquiry into misconduct by British Special Forces in Afghanistan is a crucial step towards ensuring justice and preventing future incidents. It is high time we address the role and operations of Special Forces, emphasising transparency, oversight, and the protection of human rights.”

The shadowy operations conducted overseas by the British special forces is a travesty of international law. It is clandestine neocolonialism at its worst leading to wide-scale destabilisation and insecurity in target nations. It is clear that the lack of transparency and accountability of these forces puts global security in danger and cannot be considered to be within the limits of international law. As such, these British operations must be considered unlawful and open to prosecution as human rights crimes or even war crimes in specific cases. Where is international law and justice when confronting Western global military adventurism? Apparently nowhere to be seen or heard.