Australian soldiers killed Afghan prisoner as only six could fit on American helicopter, US marine claims

[Bum]

A United States Marine Corps helicopter crew chief has accused Australian special forces of shooting dead one of seven bound Afghan prisoners because there was only space for six on the US aircraft due to collect them.

Australian soldiers killed Afghan prisoner as only six could fit on American helicopter, US marine claims

A United States Marine Corps helicopter crew chief has accused Australian special forces of shooting dead one of seven bound Afghan prisoners because there was only space for six on the US aircraft due to collect them. The chief, “Josh”, flew 159 combat missions for the Marine Corps’ Light...

news.yahoo.com

This is the first I am hearing of this, and it supposedly took place in 2012.....according to the article, its not the first time the ADF has been accused of doing this, and if substantiated, its clearly a war crime.

 

[braindrain]

A United States Marine Corps helicopter crew chief has accused Australian special forces of shooting dead one of seven bound Afghan prisoners because there was only space for six on the US aircraft due to collect them.

Australian soldiers killed Afghan prisoner as only six could fit on American helicopter, US marine claims

A United States Marine Corps helicopter crew chief has accused Australian special forces of shooting dead one of seven bound Afghan prisoners because there was only space for six on the US aircraft due to collect them. The chief, “Josh”, flew 159 combat missions for the Marine Corps’ Light...

news.yahoo.com

This is the first I am hearing of this, and it supposedly took place in 2012.....according to the article, its not the first time the ADF has been accused of doing this, and if substantiated, its clearly a war crime.

Couple reasons why I don’t believe this Marine.

One I have worked with the Australian SAS multiple times both in combat and in training. They are extreme professionals. They would not have went on a target to roll folks up without knowing exactly how many seats were available on the bird for the ride home. That is absolutely part of mission planning and would have had the aircrew answer that question before leaving the wire.

Second, and this is the one that convinced me it’s BS, the details of the Marines story simply don’t make sense. He claims the SAS called the bird and asked to bring back 7 prisoners and when they were told the they could only bring back 6 then there was silence and then they heard a pop and the SAS told them there were only six.

Helicopters are noisy as hell and they would not have been hovering 100 feet over the top of the SAS. They would be offset and they would have been no way they would have heard a shot. Especially as the SAS almost without a doubt we’re running suppressors.

And they would not have heard it over the radio as that is not how military radios work. For those that don’t know military radios like the ones they SAS would have been carrying all have a push to talk. You have to hold a button down to transmit anything. I find it beyond belief that the SAS would have been simply holding down the PTT as they murdered someone. Especially as you try to limit the amount of time you hold the ptt down because if one person holds his down it stops all others from transmitting anything. Which means if someone else sees something very important, like some enemy moving up on them they can’t tell everyone.

When someone’s story has some glaring issues with it I tend to dismiss their story.