Britain's defence ministry announced on Thursday an inquiry into allegations that its special forces carried out dozens of extrajudicial killings during night raids in Afghanistan.
The announcement follows a report by BBC television's Panorama programme in July that alleged soldiers from the elite Special Air Service (SAS) had killed 54 people in suspicious circumstances.
In a statement, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) said it had "established an independent statutory inquiry to investigate and report on allegations of wrongdoing by British armed forces in relation to their conduction of deliberate detention operations in Afghanistan".
