Australia strips senior commanders of military honours over Afghanistan war crimes allegations

Investigation found Australian soldiers murdered at least 39 Afghan civilians between 2005 and 2016

The Australian defence ministry has stripped multiple serving and former military commanders of their honours over alleged war crimes in Afghanistan.

Richard Marles, the defence minister, announced the decision on Thursday, four years after a report exposed evidence of torture and unlawful killings of 39 Afghan civilians by Australian troops between 2005 and 2016.

The Brereton Report, released in 2020 after a four-year investigation, revealed that 25 Australian Special Air Service Regiment and Commando Regiment soldiers were involved in the unlawful killings.

“The allegations which are the subject of the Brereton Report are arguably the most serious allegations of Australian war crimes in our history," Mr Marles told parliament.

“This will always be a matter of national shame.”

The minister did not give a number but the Australian Associated Press reported that up to nine commanders will lose their medals.

Investigator Maj Gen Paul Brereton had recommended holding commanders to account by reviewing the awards of those in command positions in the Special Air Service Regiment between 2008 and 2012.

Mr Marles wrote to the commanders about the medals they had received for their service during the time the war crimes allegedly occurred.

He did not specify to the parliament how many he had written to or identify their ranks, citing privacy concerns.

The decision was condemned by Australian SAS Association chair Martin Hamilton-Smith as a betrayal of the courage and sacrifice of soldiers in Afghanistan.

"The government's decision overlooks the courageous leadership of these young officers on the battlefield based on unproven allegations that somewhere in a remote village unseen and unknown to these commanders, an unlawful act might have occurred on their watch," Mr Hamilton-Smith said.

The defence minister said the officers weren’t stripped of their medals for wrongdoing. "No one is suggesting they knew what happened, were aware of it or didn't act – that's not the issue," he told reporters.

Mr Marles stressed that the majority of the Australian defence personnel deployed to Afghanistan between 2001 and 2021 had given "sacred service".

Opposition lawmaker Andrew Hastie, who as an SAS captain commanded troops in Afghanistan in 2013, said political leaders and the military hierarchy should also be held accountable for war crimes.

"I believe that our troops were let down by a lack of moral courage that went up the chain of command all the way to Canberra – including in this House," Mr Hastie said, referring to the House of Representatives.

"I want to be clear: those who are alleged to have shed innocent blood are alone responsible for that. I do not say this to absolve or condemn anyone," Mr Hastie added.

He was not decorated for his service in Afghanistan and therefore was not among the officers stripped of their medals.

No Australian veteran has been convicted of a war crime in Afghanistan so far. But a whistleblower and former army lawyer, David McBride, was sentenced in May to almost six years in jail for leaking to the media classified information that exposed allegations of Australian war crimes.

Mr McBride, a former military lawyer, pleaded guilty to three charges of stealing and unlawfully sharing more than 200 documents classified as secret.

David McBride pleaded guilty to three offences including stealing commonwealth information and passing that on to journalists at ABC News (The Project/YouTube)

ABC used the information provided by Mr McBride in 2017 as the basis for its investigative series The Afghan Files, which provided an unprecedented insight into alleged war crimes committed by the country’s forces.

In 2023, former SAS trooper Oliver Schulz became the first of the veterans to be charged with a war crime for shooting dead a noncombatant in a wheat field in Uruzgan province in 2012.

A civil court also found Australia's most decorated living war veteran Ben Roberts-Smith likely unlawfully killed four Afghans when he was an SAS corporal. He has not been criminally charged.

Additional reporting by agencies.