'Snot those guys': Secret GCSB emails reveal Operation Burnham chatter

Thomas Manch

19:57, Dec 16 2019

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/118233964/snot-those-guys-secret-gcsb-emails-reveal-operation-burnham-chatter

Secret GCSB emails show Kiwi intelligence officers discussing a New Zealand military operation that could destroy a compound housing women and children in Afghanistan.

​The emails are part of the latest public disclosure of confidential records from the Operation Burnham Inquiry, which is inspecting allegations that Afghan civilians were killed in an SAS-led raid in Afghanistan in 2010.

In the emails, which the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) now say do not meet professional standards, an intelligence officer discusses the planning of the now controversial night-time raid with a colleague: "There aint gonna be much of those compounds left once they've finished. [sic]"

Also discussed was the intelligence gathered - "a lot" of visual intelligence showing "women and kids and goats" coming in and out of the compound, which was raided a month later.