The current inquiry into allegations of Australian Special Air Service war crimes in Afghanistan highlights the far from admirable culture in our own defence force, writes Nicky Hager. The reports have gradually been coming out for years: repeated killing of civilians and mistreatment of captives by Australian SAS troops, people who believed they were above … Read more
The SAS soldiers involved in a raid where civilians died did nothing wrong, a government inquiry into Operation Burnham found. Instead, it concluded the worrying failures weren’t in Afghanistan but at defence headquarters in Wellington. A decade ago New Zealand’s elite SAS raided villages in Afghanistan’s Tirgiran Valley as part of Operation Burnham. A number … Read more
A year after the publication of a book alleging civilian deaths in a botched NZ raid in Afghanistan, the NZ Defence Force has quietly conceded its operation was in the same village depicted by the authors, and it makes the case for an inquiry overwhelming, argues Toby Manhire. “The central premise of Nicky Hager and Jon … Read more
The prime minister has said there will not be an independent inquiry into the allegations around Operation Burnham, which according to the Hager-Stephenson account killed six civilians. These are his key justifications, and the author’s reaction There was only one subject covered in Bill English’s post-cabinet press conference this afternoon: the allegations contained in the … Read more
The actions described in the book Hit & Run could constitute war crimes under the Geneva Convention. The case for an independent inquiry is now becoming overwhelming, writes geopolitical analyst Paul Buchanan. Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson make serious allegations in the book Hit and Run. Among other claims, the authors argue that the New … Read more
The former defence minister says civilian death suggestions are plausible, and that NZ needs to ‘find out what really happened’ in Operation Burnham. Wayne Mapp, the New Zealand defence minister at the time of the Tirgiran Valley raid at the heart of the claims in Hit and Run, has admitted in a blog post at … Read more
Residents of the Afghan area where NZ forces undertook Operation Burnham in 2010 say the NZ Defence Force claim it took place in Tirgiran Village is a nonsense, like describing an attack on ‘Otago City’. Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson have meanwhile conceded that they were out by 2km in locating the villages, but argue it … Read more
The Chief of NZ Defence has dismissed Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson’s book, pointing to ‘major inaccuracies’, saying Operation Burnham took place not in the villages they identify but instead in Tirgiran Village, 2km south. And it turns out Stephenson himself said, in a 2014 report, that the raid occurred in Tirgiran Village. We asked … Read more
Following a remarkable press conference by the Chief of the Defence Force, we point to the critical disputes about what took place during the 2010 NZ-led raid in Baghlan Province, Afghanistan. Starkly differing versions of events over what took place in a 2010 NZ-led raid in Afghanistan have been put forward by the authors of … Read more
The Chief of the NZ Defence Force, Lieutenant General Tim Keating, has wholesale rejected Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson’s account of events in their book Hit & Run (read a summary of its contents here), saying NZ troops have never operated in the villages where, according to the book, at least six civilians were killed. Hager … Read more
The government response to the revelations contained in Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson’s Hit and Run have so far amounted to a collective shoulder shrug. Barrister Felix Geiringer explains why that’s simply not good enough. Now that the lie about civilian casualties in Afghanistan is well and truly exposed, the anti-inquiry spin appears to be … Read more
Jess McAllen paints the picture from a Unity Books packed with media, activists and more, eager to discover the subject of the new book and the quality of the catering. Hit & Run has dominated NZ headlines since its publication less than 24 hours ago. It contains a very serious allegations of SAS involvement in … Read more
In their new book Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson offer evidence of a botched raid that killed six civilians and led to a scramble to conceal the truth. Danyl Mclauchlan reviews Hit & Run: The New Zealand SAS in Afghanistan and the Meaning of Honour and weighs up the prospects for an inquiry. This review … Read more
Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson’s new book presents compelling evidence that our SAS was responsible for killing at least six Afghan civilians, wounding at least another 15, and handing over a man to be tortured for information. The appearance that we have been systemically lied to about what our soldiers do in our name is … Read more
Nicky Hager and Jon Stephenson have just published Hit & Run: The New Zealand SAS in Afghanistan and the meaning of honour, which they say ‘tells the story of a dark and guilty secret of New Zealand’s recent history’, and makes the case that six civilians were killed and 15 wounded in an SAS operation. … Read more