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March 6 (UPI) -- Five serving British special forces soldiers are under arrest on suspicion of murder by military authorities in connection with the killing of a suspected member of Islamic Jihad in Syria in 2022. Military police sent case files recommending the men be prosecuted for murder to the Service Prosecuting Authority, the authority that prosecutes offenses alleged to have been committed by military personnel.
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The Ministry of Defense declined to comment specifically.
"We hold our personnel to the highest standards and any allegations of wrongdoing are taken seriously. Where appropriate, any criminal allegations are referred to the service police for investigation," said an MoD spokesman.
The troops, members of the elite Special Air Services unit, claim the suspect posed a threat and that they feared he was about to carry out a suicide attack, but military police believe the level of force used was excessive.
SPA sources told the Daily Telegraph that the troops claim to have found a live suicide vest nearby, but the suspect was not wearing it when killed.
The arrests are the first of British troops involved in suppressing ISIS in Syria and Iraq but it is unclear how far the prosecutions will get, given that only three soldiers have ever been convicted of committing a war crime while serving in the British forces.
SAS has been engaged in covert ground operations for more than 10 years, mainly working with ethnic-Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces in the northeast to call in airstrikes by RAF Typhoon warplanes and drones against targets they have located.
Special forces have also rescued British children caught up in ISIS' "Islamic Caliphate" and brought them back to Britain -- despite Britain officially having no military involvement in Syria.
In 2018, the MoD was forced to confirm the killing of SAS operative Matt Tonroe in a friendly-fire incident, along with U.S. Commando Jonathan Dunbar, which it said occurred somewhere in the Middle East in a "Field of Operation" cryptically termed "Other Locations."
The pair actually died in Manbij, northern Syria, in an operation against ISIS after explosives carried by another soldier detonated.
The British Government has maintained a strict policy of refusing to confirm or deny any information regarding the activities of the SAS and the sister Special Boast Service going back four decades.
The SAS's highest-ranking officer, the director of special forces, bypasses all military hierarchy, reporting directly to the defense secretary and prime minister.
The arrests come amid an ongoing judge-led public inquiry into allegations the SAS summarily executed 80 civilians in a three-year period in Afghanistan during the time British forces were in the country fighting a Taliban insurgency.
Johnny Mercer, minister of veterans affairs, said the army had failed in its primary responsibility to find out the truth of allegations the SAS had committed murder.
Top MoD officers had made little attempt to get to the bottom of allegations UKSF1, a special unit within the SAS, conducted an in-country policy of killing "fighting age" Afghan men between 2010 and 2013, Mercer told the inquiry.
Surviving families allege senior officers and staff at the MoD blocked a thorough investigation of what they say was a "murder campaign" against civilians who posed no threat.
If Lord Justice Haddon-Cave finds war crimes that the military failed to properly investigate, when he reports in the fall it could trigger a criminal investigation into the shootings and potential obstruction of justice by Special Forces commanders for thwarting the efforts of military police investigators.
