A scandal has erupted in the UK after a single UK military officer blocked the resettlement applications of more than 1500 Afghan soldiers who served with UK special forces.

Local reports say that the reason for the refusals may be that some of the Afghans witnessed alleged war crimes that are now the subject of an inquiry.

Files released by the UK’s Ministry of Defence in court show the unnamed officer rejected every application referred to him in 2023, in what was described as a “sprint”.

Afghan commandos, known as the Triples, supported the UK’s special forces over several years in Afghanistan and were in danger of reprisal after the Taliban took back control of the country in 2021.

But thousands of UK resettlement applications containing credible evidence of service in the Triples were rejected.

The rejections came at a time when a public inquiry in the UK had started investigating alleged war crimes by UK special forces during operations in Afghanistan.

If the Afghans were allowed to enter the UK, they could be called as witnesses – but the inquiry has no power to compel testimony from foreign nationals who are overseas.

Officials reportedly raised concerns in October 2022 about the role of special forces officers in rejecting applications with links to the Triples units.

In a witness statement submitted to court, the head of the UK’s Afghan resettlement team, wrote that she became concerned special forces were applying a practice of “automatic rejections” of the Triples applicants.

The BBC’s Panorama first revealed the allegations of war crimes and also the special forces apparent veto power over applications in 2024.

Former members of UK Special Forces broke years of silence to give the program eyewitness accounts of alleged war crimes committed by colleagues in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The veterans described seeing members of the SAS murder unarmed people in their sleep and execute handcuffed detainees, including children.

The killing of detainees became routine, the eyewitnesses said.

“They’d search someone, handcuff them, then shoot them, before cutting off the plastic handcuffs used to restrain people and planting a pistol by the body,” one told Panorama.

The new testimony includes allegations of war crimes stretching over more than a decade, far longer than the three years currently being examined by a judge-led public inquiry in the UK.

Special Forces were deployed to Afghanistan to protect British troops from Taliban fighters and bomb makers. The conflict saw 457 UK soldier lose their lives and thousands more were wounded.