by Ganesh Sahathevan
Readers may recall this report from 2012:
Defence has confirmed that three Australian soldiers have been killed by a man in an Afghan army uniform in another 'green on blue' attack at a base in the south of the country.
Acting Defence Minister Warren Snowdon confirmed the deaths this morning and said another two Australian soldiers had been wounded in the incident, which took place last night in Uruzgan Province.
"Three Australian solders have been killed as a result of a green on blue incident and two have been injured," he said.
The killer was an Afghan soldier, who was being trained by members of the Australian Defence Force. On9/11 this year the ABC reported:
Hekmatullah, has spent seven years in jail after killing Lance Corporal Stjepan Milosevic, Sapper James Martin and Private Robert Poate in August 2012.
He ambushed the soldiers in a "green on blue" attack, while they were playing cards at their base at Tarin Kowt in Uruzgan province.
The ABC has confirmed the former Afghan Army sergeant was on board a flight that took six prisoners to Doha.
The incident is a sad but predictable part of what soldiers must endure in a war zone.It occurred during that period of time when the SAS stand accused of committing war crime and it demonstrates why it is difficult to understand what Major General Mr Justice Paul Brereton means by "non-combatant" and "disputable decisions made under pressure in the heat of battle".
TO BE READ WITH
Thursday, November 19, 2020
CDF Angus Campbell silent on the matter of the intelligence that the SAS were provided ; did Justice Brereton consider the issue when deciding that it was "plain that the person killed was a non-combatant"
Major General Brereton said none of the incidents being referred to the AFP could be discounted as "disputable decisions made under pressure in the heat of battle".
"The cases in which it has been found that there is credible information of a war crime are ones where it was, or should have been, plain that the person killed was a non-combatant," he said.
It is important to remember that in Afghanistan the enemy is the Taliban, a terrorist group, and not an army under the command of a state. Australian Army experience in other conflicts against terrorists, for example the Malayan Communist Party during the Malayan Emergency of 1948-1960, would have instilled in any leader of the Australian Armed Forces the importance of intelligence about enemy movements and supplies, in particular supplies from local communities.
That intelligence is relied on by army commanders who then direct their troops, including their special forces, to weaken and destroy the enemy's resources, including its supply lines. It would then be naive in the extreme to assume that soldiers acting under such orders would not be acting "under pressure in the heat of battle".
Chief Of Defence Forces Angus Campbell has spent a lot of time over the past 24 hours apologising for as yet unproven allegations. He ought to now explain what intelligence his men were provided, which would have informed their actions, and informed their assessment of who was or was not an enemy combatant.
END
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