The SAS secretly tracked down and killed two members of a gang who murdered six British military policemen in Iraq, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
At the time, the deaths of the Red Caps in June 2003, weeks after Saddam Hussein was toppled, was the largest loss of UK life to enemy forces in the Iraq war.
For 23 years it was thought the killers fled across the border into Iran to escape justice. But in a remarkable development, SAS sources have revealed in a new book that they located a pair of the Iranian-backed gang members involved and killed them.
The details of their deaths have not been disclosed, but sources also revealed that the SAS would have taken down more, had they not been stopped by UK top brass.
It is understood generals feared challenging Iranian-backed terrorists would trigger an uprising against UK forces in southern Iraq, which, like Iran, is mainly Shia.
Last night, one of the fathers of the slain Red Caps, whose families have repeatedly accused the government of a cover-up over the deaths, said he was stunned to learn the SAS had ‘meted out justice’.
John Miller, the father of Corporal Simon Miller, who was 21 at the time, told the MoS: ‘This has been kept from us for 23 years. I can’t believe we are hearing it now, from you. I am very pleased to hear two of them are dead. I hope the SAS soldiers emptied their magazines into them, as they did to our Si.
The bodies of the six military policemen killed in Al Majar Al Kabir are taken from a Chinook helicopter as they are brought home to Britain from Afghanistan in 2003
Lance Corporal Thomas Keys was among those executed in an Iraqi police station
‘But it is another sickening blow for the families that the SAS were stopped from hunting down the others. They got away with it. The SAS catching these guys was our best chance of justice.’
The other Red Caps executed in an Iraqi police station following an angry demonstration were Sergeant Simon Hamilton-Jewell, 41, Corporal Russell Aston, 30, Corporal Paul Long, 24, Lance Corporal Ben Hyde, 23, and Lance Corporal Tom Keys, 20. Iraqi police officers fled the station in Majar al-Kabir in the Maysan province of southern Iraq minutes before they were murdered.
Days later, when SAS officers visited the same station disguised as grieving colleagues, the Iraqi police officers shared the killers’ names.
Recalling their covert mission, an SAS officer says in the book that ‘we couldn’t believe how disinterested UK commanders were in finding those responsible. We just got on with it and got lucky.
‘We got their names and went after the murderers. But the reaction from the hierarchy was, “Stop, you’re stirring up opposition to us”.
‘Every one of those gang members posed a live threat to UK forces. We would have got them all given the chance. We flew back to Baghdad knowing more British troops’ lives would be lost because of the reluctance of senior officers to confront the Iranian threat.’
The Red Caps’ families have always disputed the findings of a 2006 inquest that their deaths could not have been avoided. To add to their anger, in 2013, nine Iraqi police officers were awarded £800,000 in compensation after claiming they had been tortured to obtain the killers’ names.
The MoD has expressed its ‘heartfelt sympathies’ with the slain troops’ families. Officials do not comment publicly on any SAS operations.
Blades by Mark Nicol will be published on Thursday by Biteback, priced £22. To order a copy for £19.80 (offer valid until October 18; UK p&p free on all orders over £25) go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.
