The Ministry of Defence has apologised after 97 million files were discovered more than three years into the independent inquiry examining allegations of unlawful killings by UK Special Forces in Afghanistan, with thousands of documents potentially relevant to its investigation.

Newly published evidence presented to the Afghanistan Inquiry contains allegations from multiple witnesses of prisoner abuse, intimidation and a culture of exceptionalism within UK Special Forces, although the Inquiry has yet to reach any findings.

The Economist’s appointment of former 77th Brigade commander Major General Alex Turner as defence editor raises questions about whether the esteemed paper’s defence journalism can now maintain sufficient independence from military institutions when senior practitioners of information warfare move into such influential media roles.

N1788 told the Afghanistan Inquiry that Afghan partner forces became increasingly reluctant to work with a British special forces unit in 2011 amid concerns over deadly night raids and mounting political pressure from President Hamid Karzai.

A former UK Special Forces chief told the Afghanistan Inquiry he directly challenged a commander after becoming aware of allegations that troops under his command may have been deliberately killing people during operations in Afghanistan.

A former Special Forces headquarters chief told the Afghanistan Inquiry that increasing Afghan fatalities and concerns over raid tactics led commanders to order a review in 2011.

The Ajax programme shows how a mix of weak governance, politicking, industrial dependency and institutional optimism allowed a deeply flawed defence project to limp on with minimal corporate consequence, even as safety failures mounted and accountability drained away.

Did Britain’s focus on discrediting lawyers and fixers accused of pursuing false claims in Iraq ultimately obscure credible evidence of civilian harm, leaving many Iraqi victims of British military action without investigation, recognition or justice?

Drawing on Iraqi police affidavits, court records, death certificates and eyewitness testimony, this report documents the killing of Mohammed Midel and his wife Kfaya Majid by British forces during a night raid in Basra in April 2007, the serious wounding of Saad Quasim, and the complete absence of any meaningful investigation or accountability despite extensive contemporaneous evidence.

Naser Ramadan Hmely, a tribal elder from southern Iraq, alleges that his brother was shot dead by British soldiers during a chaotic intervention in Basra in 2007, but despite partial documentation, detention records and an acknowledged inquiry, the killing was never formally resolved, leaving a story suspended between grievance, militia affiliation, and the enduring absence of accountability.

In March 2003, during the opening days of Britain’s invasion of Iraq, a British tank shell struck a family home in Basra, leaving civilian Hassan Jouma Raheem catastrophically injured, uninvestigated and uncompensated more than two decades later.

An eight-year-old Iraqi girl was killed by a British soldier’s gunfire in Basra in 2003, a death acknowledged at the time through visits, payments and correspondence but never formally investigated, prosecuted or compensated by the UK state.