Videos: Australian forces killing Afghan civilians as "quotas"
2 Min Read
Scandalous videos of Australian special forces killing civilians in Afghanistan surface on the internet, revealing once again the barbarism of Western occupation forces.
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A still image from a video which surfaced in 2020, of an Australian SAS force speaking to the cameraman, "you want me to drop this c**t," as he points his assault rifle at the man, Dad Mohammad, laying in the ground with his hands up, holding a red-beaded rosary. Within seconds, the soldier fires three shots at the married father of two.
A report from the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force Afghanistan Inquiry Report - or the Brereton Report - published in 2020 exposed elite Australian commandos unlawfully killing civilians in Afghanistan between the years 2006 and 2015.
According to the report, senior officials ordered young commandos to execute detainees, which they called "blooding" young troops. The special forces unit of the Australian Army - the 2nd Commando Regiment - was exposed in a number of videos from 2012 discussing killing unarmed civilians in cold blood during their nine years of deployment in Afghanistan.
Apparently, the forces had "quotas" - in the videos, having a "quota of 10" civilians to kill assigned to each soldier was happily and gleefully discussed among the unit members. The word "quota" was used over 12 times in one of the videos, which was only 90 seconds long.
One soldier told the Australian cameraman: "We've got a quota of 10. The quota is 10," to which one soldier replies that he will meet the "quota."
One video exhibits an Australian soldier shooting from his assault rifle from his combat helicopter at unarmed civilians.
Another video, which was played on ABC news, shows two Australian commandos detaining a farmer, whilst another reveals the Australian forces watching an Afghan soldier beating a civilian.
#Australian soldiers film themselves murdering a young, unarmed #Afghan man. pic.twitter.com/y5d5XfOuh2
— tim anderson (@timand2037) March 18, 2020
Australia's war crimes agency is investigating the elite commandos' behaviors.
In their defense, the Australian Defense Forces said it does not use "enemy casualty numbers as a measure of performance, success or effectiveness, including during operations in Afghanistan."
"The publicly released version of the Afghanistan Inquiry report briefly mentions 'catch and release, and the kill count' as one of the factors the presence of which may have contributed to an environment in which deviant behavior [in the SAS] could take place and not be recognised," a spokesperson said.
See next: Evidence of British commandos committing war crimes in Afghanistan
