Army lost control of the SAS during the Afghanistan War, official report reveals

The Army effectively lost control of the Special Air Service Regiment during the war in Afghanistan, allowing sergeants and corporals to fight the war as they chose, according to a long-suppressed official investigation.

A summary of a report by the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force into the command of the special forces found the SAS became dominated by what it called a “bikie gang” of non-commissioned officers.

Instead of trying to control their men, SAS officers sought to become their friends, allowed them unrestricted access to alcohol and did not investigate when Afghan deaths spiked without a corresponding increase in Australian casualties.

The report, which was quietly published online Tuesday, contains the first public acknowledgement by the Defence Force that senior leaders should share in the blame for any misconduct by junior soldiers.

“The breakdown in command occurred in an incremental way over an extended period of time,” the report says. “Signs of broader decline appear to have been evident to some in higher headquarters. That there was no effective intervention and that this decline was allowed to continue, suggests an absence of effective leadership at various levels.”

Chief of the Army

No individuals are named in the 22-page summary, although there is a single reference to an “apparent absence of input from CA” about SAS soldiers who were allowed to return to Afghanistan without passing mandatory mental-health checks. CA is an acronym for Chief of the Army, who was Lieutenant General Ken Gillespie from 2008 to 2011.

The Defence Force did not immediately respond to a request for comment on behalf of Mr Gillespie, who is retired.

The report was commissioned by the Defence Force after the Brereton Inquiry cleared officers of blame regarding what it said was the unlawful killing 39 Afghans by 25 soldiers.

The new report holds SAS officers responsible for permitting “an inversion of authority” that handed control to patrol commanders, usually sergeants in charge of four to six-man teams.

“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 summary says.

“To gain acceptance and to offset a perceived lack of support from higher command, some junior officers prioritised ‘mateship’ over ‘leadership’, manifesting in an excessive familiarity in personal interactions with non-commissioned officers, including consumption of alcohol and use of first names. This contributed to a blurring of lines between ranks, particularly as between non-commissioned officers and junior officers, and an undermining of the chain-of-command.”

The best-known SAS officer from the war is Liberal politician Andrew Hastie, an ex-SAS captain who testified against former SAS corporal Ben Roberts-Smith in a defamation lawsuit over war crimes.

The CIA

Operating with little supervision, SAS teams became overly influenced by their US and British special forces counterparts and “other government agencies”, a reference to spy services such as the Central Intelligence Agency or the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, according to the report.

Patrol commanders were allowed to choose and execute their own missions, facilitated by intelligence assessments that lacked objectivity and aided by sympathetic military lawyers, the report says.

As the fighting intensified from around 2009, SAS teams focused on hunting down Taliban leaders they were permitted to kill if they could not be captured. The Taliban also used assassinations to fight the war too, often killing civilians working for the Afghan government.

As the number of killings by the SAS rose, rumours spread that something was amiss. It became widely known that weapons, radios or other military equipment were being placed next to dead bodies and photographed as proof they belonged to the insurgency, which won the war in 2021, according to the report.

“There was tangible data available for higher headquarters through trends in growing numbers of Enemy Killed in Action,” the report says. “This included growth and spikes in these statistics over time, as well as features such as a lack of wounded insurgents (only deaths) and the lack of ADF casualties. By historical standards, elements of this data presented as most unusual.

“Some commanders were alert to this data and rumours that accompanied it while others were not, which may suggest an abandonment of curiosity. There is no suggestion that those aware of rumours were specifically complicit in the misconduct, however, it is extraordinary that no effective action was taken given the gravity of the matters the subject of rumours.”

Two SAS soldiers have been charged with war crimes, Oliver Schulz, whose trial for murder is scheduled to begin in February, and Mr Roberts-Smith, who has said it could take up to seven years for his case to reach a jury.

Both men deny the charges. Mr Schulz’s lawyers have foreshadowed that he intends to argue that he was operating under orders. Mr Roberts-Smith, who is accused of executing or ordering the execution of five prisoners, has said he always followed his training and the rules governing Australian soldiers in Afghanistan.

The IGADF report was first reported by The Australian.