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Five Eyes
The sharing of this type of highly classified material is part of the multilateral “Five Eyes” treaty between Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the UK and the US. In Australia and elsewhere, similar SIGINT and aerial surveillance capabilities have since been outsourced to government-funded private security companies such as Omni Executive, which employs ex-military personnel who retained their top secret security clearances after leaving the defence force.
The Liberty has a crew of four, including a pilot, co-pilot, ISR sensor operator and classified communications operator. In Afghanistan, a fifth member of the crew was usually located with the ground force tactical commander, providing live video footage and a secure communications link with the aircraft as it loitered over the target area.
Defence sources who were directly involved in the Australian Special Operations Task Group’s (SOTG) kill-capture campaign against the Taliban in southern Afghanistan told MWM the USAF Liberty was “the ISR platform of choice” for the SOTG during this period. The Liberty had a “lower signature” and was able to respond more quickly to calls for support than other aircraft such as the RAAF Orion. USAF MC-12s and contracted SKA 350s were based at Kandahar and Bagram airfields in Afghanistan, while the RAAF Orions were three hours away at Al Minhad Air Base near Dubai in the United Arab Emirates. One source told MWM:
“The ISR aircraft over Darwan was an MC-12, with the video feed going straight into the ops room and the forward command element out on the ground. If not an MC-12, it was one of the contracted SKA 350s.”
From 2009 to 2013, USAF says its Liberty squadrons played a key role in killing or capturing more than 700 high-value insurgent targets in Afghanistan, with a 99.9% response rate for ISR support requests from US and allied ground troops. The motto of the Bagram-based Liberty squadron was “Find, fix, finish.” One of the USAF Captains from this squadron said in early 2014:
“We use our tactical systems operator to help find the enemy. We then fix on the enemy with a camera operated by our sensor operator, and then we are part of the kill-chain as well; we guide other assets onto the target to be able to either eliminate or capture the enemy forces.”
Another Defence source who served in Afghanistan during this period told MWM:
“There were a few RAAF or ex-RAAF pilots attached to the Liberty units in Afghanistan. I can’t recall numbers, but I do know some of the Liberty ISR missions across Afghanistan were actually flown by Australian pilots. Sigint specialists from ASIS [the Australian Secret Intelligence Service] and ASD [the Australian Signals Directorate] were also directly involved in the Liberty ISR task force to some extent.
There’s little doubt much of their ISR product would have gone to Canberra … regardless of the normal ADF or US military reporting chains.
The Darwan mission
Classified SOTG documents obtained by MWM show two Liberty aircraft were assigned to perform this role in support of the cordon and search mission at Darwan in Uruzgan province on 11 September 2012, where Ali Jan was allegedly executed. The raid involved 42 Australian soldiers from SAS 2 Squadron headquarters, SAS Golf Troop and 2 Commando Regiment’s November Platoon, with a “partner force” of 18 Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS) ‘Wakunish’ commandos.
They were flown from the multi-national base at the Uruzgan provincial capital of Tarin Kowt (MNBTK) to the remote Darwan village just after 5.30 am in two ‘turns’ of four US Army UH-60 ‘Blackhawk’ utility helicopters.
Further support came from two US Army AH-64 ‘Apache’ gunship helicopters and one unmanned ISR drone, most likely a RAAF Heron. One of the Liberty aircraft circled above Darwan, providing live surveillance footage to the troops on the ground for the duration of the six-hour raid. The second Liberty remained on standby until it was stood down as ground operations concluded and the troops started returning to MNBTK on the Blackhawks. At 10.54 am, the SAS 2 Squadron operations officer wrote in the SOTG operations chat room:
“For ISR manager – limited value in the second [Liberty] mission this afternoon (for both [2 Squadron] and fusion and targeting cell). In order to conserve hours for a more viable targeting period, please stand down the second mission.”
As many as six “persons of interest” were detained by the SOTG during the Darwan search, then flown back to MNBTK and transferred to the ADF detention facility just before midday.
Defence sources have told MWM the tip-off for the raid came from corrupt, illiterate Afghan warlord Matiullah Khan, who at the time was the Uruzgan police chief. He was reportedly killed by a Taliban suicide bomber several years later in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul.