Five Afghan civilians summarily executed by Australian special forces to 'eliminate witnesses': report

Six Afghan civilians were killed to eliminate witnesses after a farmer was accidentally shot dead during an Australian special forces' raid in December 2012, an Australian officer has claimed.

An ABC investigation uncovered harrowing new claims over what has been identified as the single deadliest incident amid dozens of alleged war crimes committed by Australian special forces in Afghanistan, the subject of a broader investigation Canberra's police and military.

Last year, an internal probe into military misconduct found that elite Special Air Forces (SAS) soldiers, who had served in Afghanistan between 2007 and 2013, "unlawfully killed" 39 Afghan civilians and prisoners.

In the latest incident to be brought to media attention, an Australian SAS commander in a helicopter which landed near the village of Sara Aw of Taliban-dominated southern Afghanistan ordered the helicopter gunner carrying international special forces to fire around Afghan farmers on the ground to stop them dispersing, unnamed officers told ABC.

The patrol commander, identified as Sergeant T, opened fire at the farmers in the field as troops disembarked the helicopter.

An unnamed SAS officer said: "He told me from his perspective what happened, which was that the patrol commander had accidentally shot one of this group of farmers," the officer said.

"And then they made the decision that they couldn't leave anyone behind to tell [what happened]. So, they decided to kill all of them."

Among the dead was a 13-year-old boy, it was alleged.

"When the shooting started, they were shooting indiscriminately," a farmer who survived the incident told ABC

SAS troops also allegedly chased down one Afghan farmer who attempted to flee the scene.

After being caught and returned to the field where the other farmers lay dead, they too were shot dead, the report claims.

Australia deployed 39,000 military personnel to Afghanistan during the two decades that followed the US-led invasion of the country, which ousted the Taliban.

While special forces left the country in 2013, the matter first came to public attention in 2017 when ABC published the "Afghan files" which alleged that Australian troops had killed unarmed men and children in the country.

Australian police cracked down on a journalist behind the leaks on the grounds they had obtained classified information, but later dropped the case.