Australian SAS officers knew about unlawful ‘throwdowns’ on dead Afghans, report says

Some Australian SAS officers knew that soldiers under their command were using “throwdowns” – planting weapons on dead Afghan civilians to portray them as combatants – but did nothing to stop the unlawful practice, a previously unpublished military report has said.

Posted online this week, the executive summary of a 2021 investigation into the “cultural context” of the special operations command by the inspector general of the Australian Defence Force (IGADF) is scathing about the “breakdown of command” and the erosion of military discipline during special forces operations in Afghanistan, which “resulted in episodes of potential and actual egregious behaviour”.

A previously published IGADF report, the Brereton Inquiry, made public in 2020, found credible information that Australian special forces personnel murdered 39 Afghan civilians and prisoners. But the Brereton report largely exonerated officers, saying the “criminal behaviour” it uncovered “was conceived, committed, continued, and concealed at patrol commander level”. Patrol commanders in the Australian SAS are not commissioned officers, they are typically corporals or sergeants.

However, the newly released report, commissioned in the wake of the Brereton findings by former defence force chief – and SAS officer – Angus Campbell in 2021, found some SAS officers knew about alleged “unlawful behaviour” and did not act to stop them.

“Officers with actual knowledge of misconduct in-theatre, including notably the use of throwdowns to effect in fraudulent reporting, or rumours of misconduct, did not take effective action to investigate and address these issues.”

The unlawful behaviour identified by the IGADF revealed “a breakdown of command”, and ineffective leadership.

“The proper functioning of the ADF as a hierarchical system relies upon the enforcement of rules at all levels. A failure to do so has a corrosive effect on behaviours, morale and ultimately, military discipline, which in this case resulted in episodes of potential and actual egregious behaviour.”

SAS officers allowed the regiment to develop an “uncontrolled ‘warrior’ ethos”, and the long, grinding, nature of the Afghan conflict, to which a small cohort of SAS soldiers were repeatedly sent on dangerous, corrosive deployments, contributed to moral injury and impaired decision-making.

“The group dynamic within a special forces deployment influences the shift in moral compass of some individuals,” the report said.

“The incremental shift in moral compass in response to violence, killing, morally questionable decisions and unconventional features, can create moral injury.”

The report found that the excessively secretive and insular nature of the SAS also contributed to worsening standards as did an “inversion” of the chain of command, where senior non-commissioned officers were able to dominate officers who were, ostensibly, their superiors.

“This resulted in junior officers being effectively subservient to non-commissioned officers, and occupying a position which can best be described as ‘learned helplessness’.”

The report cited the fact SAS soldiers were consistently allowed to drink alcohol while on deployment in Afghanistan – in defiance of orders imposed on others – “sent the strong signal to those involved that the rules did not apply to them”.

The use of “throwdowns” was a known breach that officers failed to stop.

“The unwillingness to challenge non-commissioned officers was particularly apparent from the breakdown of military discipline through a lack of proper supervision. The failure to address the widely known use of throwdowns is an example of this.

“This was also a manifestation of a broader breakdown of military discipline within the SAS regiment. The tolerance of officers of overt non-compliance sent a powerful signal.”

Similarly, soldiers wrote false reports of their actions on the battlefield, focused on rules of engagement and laced with circumlocution, which “assisted perpetrators of misconduct to conceal their actions”.

“A particular manifestation was the use of variations of a standard phrase ‘manoeuvring to a position of tactical advantage’, to describe the actions of civilian ‘squirters’ as direct participants in hostilities, which justified engagement… under the rules of engagement. The expression was used with such regularity that it lost meaning.”

The report’s executive summary says there was “a significant failure of good leadership and effective command” across the SAS commanders, and that the reporting systems designed to prevent misconduct had become “depleted and largely unreliable”, giving officers “a false level of assurance”.

“The culture of the Special Operations Task Group… was not the cause of misconduct but created an environment which enabled misconduct by a few to occur.”

Defence had previously refused to release the report despite it being the subject of freedom of information requests and an attempt to force its disclosure in the senate.