Britain's SAS Warns Troops Are Scared To Pull Trigger Over 'Witch Hunts'

Britain's Special Air Service soldiers are shying away from missions where they may have to kill, serving SAS officers say, because they fear being accused of war crimes later by a public inquiry that has hung over the regiment for nearly four years.

The officers told the Telegraph that there have been no outright refusals to deploy. But some serving members are now "less inclined" to volunteer for dangerous operations they could be investigated over. Asked what kind of operations, one officer answered: "Jobs where you might end up shooting people."

Serving SAS officers almost never speak to the press, even anonymously. The one quoted by the paper said the regiment feels "permanently and constantly scrutinised, without reprieve" and called it the worst part of the job. The officer still expects troops to act "correctly" on operations and not "hesitate" when they have to shoot.

The inquiry in question is the Independent Inquiry relating to Afghanistan, chaired by Lord Justice Sir Charles Haddon-Cave. It is examining allegations that SAS soldiers executed detained men and children during night raids between mid-2010 and mid-2013, that the killings were covered up, and that military police failed to investigate, according to BFBS Forces News.

The Ministry of Defence set it up in December 2022, after a BBC Panorama investigation alleged that one SAS unit killed 54 people in suspicious circumstances during a single six-month tour in 2010 and 2011. The MoD criticized the program's "unjustified conclusions" at the time, and an SAS source called the BBC's reporting "vexatious and fallacious." Forensic specialists are now going through about 10,000 photographs taken during the raids, which Haddon-Cave has said do not appear to have been part of the military police investigations. Three weeks of public hearings run through October and November, and the inquiry has set April 30, 2027, as its deadline to finish taking evidence on the alleged killings.

Defence Secretary Wes Streeting, in the job only since July, has taken the soldiers' side in public. Speaking to Forces News on Remembrance Sunday, he said that special forces members "live under a cloud worrying about whether they are going to be persecuted rather than thanked for their service."

"Those are things I need to put right. That's going to be a process. It's not simple," Streeting said.

His comments have fed speculation that he could scrap the inquiry altogether, though people close to Streeting deny that is his plan, the Telegraph reported.

The Afghanistan inquiry is not the only case weighing on the regiment. The Sunday Times reported this month that five SAS soldiers spent three years under a murder investigation over a 2022 night raid in Syria that killed two people who turned out to be teenagers working for ISIS. The soldiers were cleared in May 2025 but told the case could be reopened at any time.

In April, the Telegraph reported that SAS soldiers were applying for early release in numbers the paper withheld for security reasons, with insiders calling the losses a "threat to national security."

The serving officer said lawfare is "a contributing factor in the motivations of those who are leaving, or choosing not to extend," and that the regiment depends on senior soldiers staying past their normal length of service. Experienced officers in line for promotion could instead leave for careers where they feel more valued.

"We won't see the problem until it's too late," the officer warned.