1800-1859 | Afghanistan | Burning towns and cities | Civilians slaughtered | Demolishing urban areas | Looting and plunder | Massacres | Punitive operations

Kabul sacked in an orgy of fire, looting and ‘wholesale butchery’

ByAlisdare Hickson

[ 10 October 1842 ] On 10 October 1842, British troops used explosives and fire to destroy much of the Afghan capital of Kabul, including the Great Bazar and an adjacent mosque. They also burned down an unknown number of domestic dwellings, slaughtering their owners. Only two neighbourhoods, deemed ‘friendly’, were left untouched and the…

2000-2009 | Afghanistan

UK FAILS TO INVESTIGATE DEATH SQUAD ALLEGATIONS IN AFGHANISTAN

ByAlisdare Hickson

18 November 2007 In the early hours of 18 November 2007, eighteen civilians were killed when Afghan and coalition special forces, possibly American, landed by helicopter in the village of Toube in Helmand province, an area where British forces held responsibility for law enforcement. Many of the dead had had their throats cut. Abdul Manaan,…

2000-2009 | Afghanistan | Civilians slaughtered

EIGHT AFGHAN CIVILIANS KILLED BY UK AIR STRIKE – REPORT KEPT SECRET

ByAlisdare Hickson

19 May 2009 On the morning of 19 May, a patrol of local police and Royal Gurkha Rifles in the southern Afghan province of Helmand came under small arms fire from insurgents. The ambush occurred not in remote mountain or desert terrain, but on densely populated rich agricultural land, distinguished by its many villages, farms,…

2010-2019 | Afghanistan | Assassinations | Civilians slaughtered

Three Afghan boys shot in the head by an SAS soldier

ByAlisdare Hickson

18 October 2012 During the autumn of 2012, the SAS conducted numerous armed raids against suspect Taliban members’ homes across the Afghan province of Helmand. Seven years later, the Sunday Times, reporting the suspected cover-up of a man and three boys who had been shot dead in their home, noted that individuals were often targeted ‘as a…

2000-2009 | Afghanistan | Blair's crimes

Blair frustrated at legal concerns over killing innocent Afghans

ByAlisdare Hickson

19 October 2001 On 19 October 2001, during the American and British air strikes on Afghanistan, Tony Blair became frustrated over legal objections to some of the targeting on the basis that innocent civilians might be killed. Alastair Campbell, his Director of Communications, recalled in his diary that the Chief of the Defence Staff, Admiral…

1860-1899 | Afghanistan | Executions

Mass executions to ‘celebrate’ the British capture of Kabul

ByAlisdare Hickson

12 October 1879 On 12 October 1879, Lieutenant General Frederick Roberts led a British army into Kabul, declaring martial law and offering financial rewards for the handing over of anyone known to have taken up arms against the Empire.  According to the Freeman’s Journal, he ‘celebrated the capture of Cabul by hanging scores of Cabulese,’ noting…

2000-2009 | Afghanistan | Famine

Britain joins an illegal war of aggression against Afghanistan

ByAlisdare Hickson

7 October 2001 On 7 October 2001, Britain joined the United States in initiating air strikes against Afghanistan.  Labour politician Tony Benn noted in his diary: ‘So we’ve launched into a war without any declaration of war, without any parliamentary authority for war, outside the United Nations, a war that is supposed to be directed…

2000-2009 | Afghanistan | Blair's crimes

Tony Blair cautions Berlusconi not to be overly concerned about war casualties

ByAlisdare Hickson

17 September 2001 In 2001, Alastair Campbell, as Tony Blair’s director of communications, was one of the few officials in almost daily contact with the prime minister. On 17 September, six days after the attack on the World Trade Centre, he noted in his diary that the PM had lunch with the Italian prime minister,…

1900-1919 | Afghanistan | Bombing towns & cities | RAF crimes

The R.A.F. bomb the medieval Afghan city of Jalalabad causing huge fires

ByAlisdare Hickson

20 May 1919 On 20 May 1919, R.A.F. aircraft of Number 31 squadron dropped more than a hundred bombs on the Afghan city of Jalalabad. A reminder to its population that continued refusal to accept British hegemony would have a terrifying cost. Afghanistan was then in its third week of a war,  an attempt to…

1980-1989 | Afghanistan | Backing terror operations

Thatcher considers options for terror operations in Afghanistan

ByAlisdare Hickson

26 January 1980 On 26 January 1980, Margaret Thatcher wrote to President Jimmy Carter informing him that Britain was ‘looking at a variety of possibilities for covert action,’ meaning acts of illegal force or terrorism, against the government of Afghanistan and Soviet forces stationed there. Foreign Secretary Lord Carrington was not only fully supportive, but…