By Aaron Patrick, The Nightly
On a spring morning in 2018, Ben Roberts-Smith walked into the lobby of Canberra’s East Hotel, known as the “Frat House” because of its popularity with out-of-town male politicians.
Waiting for him was an old colleague from the Special Air Services Regiment. The man, who Mr Roberts-Smith came to suspect was wearing a listening device, ordered a long macchiato.
Mr Roberts-Smith asked for an English Breakfast tea.
The Victoria Cross awardee was there to save his reputation. The other man, Sergeant A, would help destroy it.
The two men represented a fissure in the elite regiment. With many of Mr Roberts-Smith’s other detractors, Sergeant A had joined the SAS’ espionage wing, 4 Squadron. Along with then Captain Andrew Hastie, now a Liberal MP, he became part of a campaign to expose alleged abuses during the long war in Afghanistan, including what they claimed were the execution of prisoners.
Mr Roberts-Smith and his closest friends were mostly members of 2 Squadron, an assault unit that won the army’s bloodiest battle of the war, the 2010 Battle of Tizak.
The victory earned the SAS its first battle honours, placing them in the pantheon of special forces operators. Over time, the 2 Squadron soldiers would be driven out of the army, forced to find civilian work or live on military pensions.
The men from 4 Squadron would be protected and promoted, including those who broke military rules by briefing journalists about their colleagues.
The conflict between the two squadrons — one designed for combat, the other for spying — became a driving force behind the allegations, inquiries and media coverage that almost ripped the storied regiment apart.
Joint Interagency Liaison Office
On that unusually warm morning in Canberra at the Frat House, Mr Roberts-Smith reached out across the squadrons for help. He had found out 10 days earlier that Fairfax Media, his nemesis, intended to try to prove in court that he executed or ordered the execution of five unarmed prisoners and civilians in Afghanistan between 2009 and 2012.
Mr Roberts-Smith knew that Sergeant A could help prove or disprove the accusation he ordered an Afghan man shot in 2012 in a compound where Taliban weapons had just been found hidden in a wall cavity.
Mr Roberts-Smith’s murder trial already looks like a security nightmare for the Defence Force. In addition to thousands of classified documents it will likely have to share with Mr Roberts-Smith and his civilian lawyers, the case will bring unwanted attention to members of 4 Squadron.
When Sergeant A met with Mr Roberts-Smith — after earlier holding a clandestine meeting with two of the journalists pursuing him — he was a member of an agency so secret few people outside the intelligence services have heard of it.
Based in Canberra, the Joint Interagency Liaison Office is charged with planning some of the most sensitive work in the whole government. Soldiers from 4 Squadron work alongside officials from the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, the Australian Secret Intelligence Service, the AFP and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, according to military sources.
The agency’s classified work includes responding to terrorist attacks at home, planning rescue operations of Australians taken overseas and getting diplomatic staff out of war zones, the sources said.
Alpha-male culture
Within the SAS, 4 Squadron was a state secret. The government has never disclosed its function, but SAS veterans and a few published reports say it provides military muscle for intelligence officers on foreign assignments. SAS soldiers train at an ASIS facility in Swan Island, on Victoria’s Bellarine Peninsula, which can only be accessed by a single road or sea.
Since it adopted the 4 Squadron name around 2006, the unit has only sporadically appeared in the press. One embarrassing example was a 2013 incident in Kabul, when SAS soldiers and ASIS officers were drinking at a barbecue. A drunken soldier waved a pistol at an ASIS officer he would later describe as a flirt, according to a report by the ABC.
They were both sent home almost immediately.
During the war, the squadron became an experiment in equal opportunity. About three or four female soldiers were transferred into the squadron from elsewhere in the army, according to two SAS sources. Special Operations Command, which oversees the SAS and other special forces units, believed male and female couples would be less conspicuous on undercover operations than pairs of muscular men, the sources said.
The women did not undergo the gruelling SAS entrance trials known as “selection”, which meant they couldn’t be assigned to the regiment permanently. After about five years, the experiment was abandoned for reasons that have never been made public, according to the sources.
Because of its non-combat role, 4 Squadron was never sent to Afghanistan as a group on combat operations, according to an SAS source. But members of the squadron working with ASIS in the country would sometimes join other squadrons on missions, he said.
That included 2 Squadron, which had an aggressive reputation even by SAS standards. Two Squadron’s success hunting down Taliban leaders reinforced the power of its sergeants and corporals, who led five or six-man teams known as patrols. These battle-hardened non-commissioned officers pushed back against interference from their officers, who often had less warfare experience.
“Two Squadron were known in the regiment for patrol commanders running their own strike plans and kicking everyone out of those orders,” Mr Hastie said in 2022.
Two Squadron’s alpha-male culture was epitomised by the company’s informal mascot: the prosthetic leg of a suspect insurgent man killed (allegedly in an execution) in 2009. The leg became a popular drinking vessel at the SAS bar in Tarin Kowt, the Fat Lady’s Arms, and was shipped home to the SAS headquarters in Perth where it was mounted, framed and dubbed “Das Boot”.
Rumours and factions
As the war entered its second decade, some members of the regiment felt 2 Squadron’s fight against the insurgency had become too bloody. Rumours spread that after the shooting stopped, team leaders had ordered prisoners executed, both by newly arrived Australians and Afghan government soldiers under their command.
The regiment began to split into warring factions. Several of Mr Roberts-Smith’s detractors transferred to 4 Squadron, where they could avoid the multiple deployments to Afghanistan that were financially lucrative but tough on their bodies, their family lives and, in some cases, their spirits.
Australian combat operations in Afghanistan stopped in October, 2013, when then prime minister Tony Abbott declared at the army’s base in Southern Afghanistan: “Australia’s longest war is ending.”
The fighting with the Taliban was over. The war inside the SAS was intensifying.
Within 4 Squadron, the nucleus of what might be called the BRS opposition had established itself. Among the most senior was Mr Hastie, who had spent five days in Afghanistan in 2012 learning about the war at the same time Mr Roberts-Smith was leading a team on missions to track down Taliban leaders.
Mr Hastie became close to a sergeant known by the pseudonym Kenneth Barber, a military fitness instructor who joined the SAS in 2001. A history buff who fought in the Battle of Tizak, Sgt Barber was convinced Mr Roberts-Smith’s Victoria Cross citation contained fabrications and the corporal did not deserve the medal. He would carry the resentment at what he saw as a deep injustice for more than a decade.
In 4 Squadron’s offices, Mr Hastie and Sgt Barber held long emotional conversations about the war, Mr Roberts-Smith and whether 2 Squadron had crossed the line on the battlefield. Mr Hastie, a committed Christian, described the talks as a form of counselling.
“Evil,” Mr Hastie said in 2022 they discussed. “We all have to deal with it.
“I believe at the time I was trying to let (him) know that you can’t — you can’t change the world yourself. You can’t be the — the single person here.”
Going public
The headstrong sergeant didn’t take the advice. In December, 2015, he met independent journalist Chris Masters at a restaurant in Canberra.
Over dinner and drinks, he repeated a second-hand story that Mr Roberts-Smith kicked an Afghan man, Ali Jan, off a cliff in 2012 in the village of Darwan and had him shot.
Mr Roberts-Smith, who was in Darwan hunting an Afghan government soldier who had killed three Australians, denied kicking anyone off a cliff or ordering any executions. Photographs of the site would show the “cliff” was a river embankment.
Sgt Barber would later say he believed he had tacit permission from the Defence Force to share information about Mr Roberts-Smith with Mr Masters.
“When I rang the Defence Media up, they did not say to me, ‘Be careful what you talk about. Don’t talk about classified information and don’t talk about possible war crimes’,” he said in court in 2022.
Even though he was a member of 4 Squadron, and would also be assigned to the the Joint Interagency Liaison Office, according to another SAS source, Sgt Barber agreed to appear on Nine’s 60 Minutes program in 2019 and talk about Mr Roberts-Smith. His identity cloaked, he repeated the Darwan allegation to Mr Masters’ collaborator, Nick McKenzie.
At the time of the 60 Minutes interview, the allegations were being investigated by a NSW judge, Paul Brereton, on behalf of the Inspector-General of the Australian Defence Force, which oversees military justice. Justice Brereton had started work in 2016. His report would not be published until 2020.
Sgt Barber did not seek permission from the army to appear on the show, but was allowed to remain in the SAS despite breaching military rules that strictly limit contact with journalists. “I’m not proud of it, however . . . I can’t say I regret it,” Sgt Barber said in court in 2022. “I wouldn’t do it again.”
Sgt Barber wasn’t at Darwan. He was told the cliff story by a private in Mr Roberts-Smith’s team at Tizak, who had also swapped from 2 Squadron to 4 Squadron. The private disliked Mr Roberts-Smith and resented that he had to wait three years to receive a medal for his bravery in the battle, according to evidence he gave in court.
Another member of the Tizak assault team had also moved across to 4 Squadron. A scout, he resented that a Star of Gallantry, the second-ranked bravery decoration, had been awarded to the team’s sergeant, a close friend of Mr Roberts-Smith’s.
The scout, who was also a private, confronted the sergeant about the official record of the Battle of Tizak. It credited the sergeant with saving the team’s six men, including Mr Roberts-Smith, by throwing a grenade at a Taliban machine-gun nest. The explosion either killed or stunned one of the machine-gunners, allowing Mr Roberts-Smith to charge in and kill everyone left alive, the act recognised with the Victoria Cross for Australia.
“I said to him,” the scout said in court he told the sergeant, “I don’t believe it really was, mate. You didn’t know where the grenade was going. You had no idea where you were throwing that. Show some humility.”
Sharing info at Tulip’s
Even though Sergeant A was a 2 Squadron member in 2010, he missed the Battle of Tizak. The army refused to send him to Afghanistan because he had stored photographs from military operations on a personal hard drive, which his estranged wife discovered and used to blackmail him, he said.
Transferred to 4 Squadron, Sergeant A found a supporter in Mr Hastie, who called him a “very good guy”. In early 2018, Sergeant A met Masters, the journalist, twice in Canberra.
Sergeant A later said he chose to meet at a place called “tulips” at 7.30am. Google lists one such venue in Canberra, Tulip’s Cafe in the suburb of Pialligo, located on a semi-rural back street near Canberra Airport. Unlike the Frat House, it was a discreet place to share information.
At the cafe, Sergeant A talked about a mission in October, 2012, to the Chenartu District about 100km north-east of the SAS’ base in southern Afghanistan. As soldiers in a team commanded by the then Corporal Roberts-Smith were searching a mud-brick compound, they discovered an AK-47 assault rifle, bullets and rocket-propelled grenades hidden in a wall cavity.
In the aftermath of the discovery, Mr Roberts-Smith told an Afghan government soldier to shoot an Afghan man present in the compound, Sergeant A alleged in court. By his own account, Sergeant A did not try to stop what he described as an execution, did not file a complaint or tell anyone in authority.
“I was perplexed but didn’t say anything,” Sergeant A said in court. “We . . . were like close to extraction.”
Sergeant A said he then jogged to an open area where helicopters were going to land and return them to their base. He said he saw a visibly unhappy senior sergeant from 2 Squadron who was responsible for prisoners.
Headquarters had been notified that three or four possible insurgents had been captured, according to Sergeant A. In military terminology they were known as PUCs, for person under confinement or control.
“The PUC count has already gone in and the helos are coming in,” the senior sergeant said, according to Sergeant A.
Only two prisoners were available for the helicopter ride. It is unclear if any numerical PUC disparity was questioned by 2 Squadron’s commanders.
Exactly what Sergeant A told journalists about the Chenartu mission is unclear, but the soldier believed he was authorised to speak to them despite working in an espionage unit.
“Defence was, were aware of what was happening,” he said in court when asked if he sought permission to brief the media about military operations.
The Defence Department did not respond to a request to comment about 4 Squadron’s role or tensions within the SAS during and after the war.
Mr Roberts-Smith has denied killing prisoners or ordering anyone to. “I categorically deny all of these allegations,” he said on April 19. ”I’m proud of my service in Afghanistan. While I was there, I always acted within my values, my training and within the rules of engagement.”
The winner
Six years after the Chenartu mission, Sergeant A and Mr Roberts-Smith found themselves exchanging pleasantries at the East Hotel in Canberra. Mr Roberts-Smith had been given the evidence that would be used against him in his unsuccessful defamation lawsuit against Nine. It included a statement by Sergeant A about Chenartu that accused Mr Roberts-Smith of ordering an execution.
At the hotel, Mr Roberts-Smith handed the sergeant a copy of the document and asked if he had accused him of having a man executed. “I showed him, effectively, a redacted page with … what was attributed to him,” Mr Roberts-Smith said in court. “Shockingly, to me, at the time, he said that that’s how he saw the events of the day unfold.”
Sergeant A said he told Mr Roberts-Smith: “2012 was pretty loose” and “come on mate, you machine gunned that guy”.
After the conversation petered out, Sergeant A stood up and said, “Thanks for the coffee” and walked away. Mr Roberts-Smith paid for the macchiato.
Sergeant A is not one of the four veterans granted immunity from murder charges in return for testifying against Mr Roberts-Smith. The former soldier has not been charged over the alleged incident at Chenartu, which is one of the five counts of the war crime of murder against Mr Roberts-Smith. Lawyers involved say the case will take years to reach a trial.
As for the battle of the squadrons, it was resoundingly won by 4 Squadron. In 2020 the Chief of the Defence Force, former SAS officer Angus Campbell, decided to abolish 2 Squadron after the official inquiry concluded Australian soldiers were responsible for the deaths of 39 Afghans.
Some 2 Squadron veterans believe they are still being pursued by the Office of the Special Investigator, which has been allocated $300 million from Defence funding to investigate veterans. Some officers who were members of 2 Squadron or oversaw the unit had decorations revoked.
Mr Hastie, the Opposition industry spokesman, did not respond to questions about his involvement in the case. Mr Roberts-Smith is a former executive at the Seven television network, which is part of the same company as The Nightly.
