Elite Seals do the dirty work

Afghan security forces and civilians walk at the site of a suicide attack in Lashkar Gah, capital of Helmand province, Afghanistan. Photo / AP

Team Six, which killed bin Laden, became ‘warped, bloated’ and reduced to battling low-value targets.

The elite Seal Team Six fighting force which killed Osama bin Laden has warped and bloated into an unaccountable organisation which targets low-level militants and "street thugs", according to a new account of the secretive unit.

Former servicemen from the legendary navy unit said that it has become engaged in bloody all-out combat in Afghanistan rather than the targeted anti-terrorist raids for which it is famed.

The revelations came in an extensive account of Team Six's origins and evolution in the New York Times, which interviewed at least a dozen experts and former Seals.

Team Six, which now numbers 1800 personnel, has been given a "ballooning" budget and ever-expanding role since 9/11, the account said. Some described being sent through Afghan villages in search of "subcommanders" and "street thugs" - sometimes racking up 25 kills without landing a major target. One said: "By 2010, guys were going after street thugs - The most highly trained force in the world, chasing after street thugs." Another characterised the missions as "killing fests".

The missions described are a far cry from Team Six's peak - the precise raid in 2011 which led to the death of Osama bin Laden in his Pakistan compound.

The huge succession of missions - more than 10,000 according to estimates - has also opened the Seals to accusations of abuse. "No figures are publicly available that break out the number of raids that Team Six carried out in Afghanistan or their toll," the New York Times reported. "Military officials say that no shots were fired on most raids. But between 2006 and 2008, Team 6 operators said, there were intense periods in which for weeks at a time their unit logged 10 to 15 kills on many nights, and sometimes up to 25."

The New York Times recounted an incident in which Afghan villagers and a British official accused the Seals of indiscriminate killing in a village in Afghanistan's Helmand Province. It also mentioned a time when the Seals were accused of killing eight schoolboys after being sent on a raid based on faulty intelligence. Details of the incidents are sparse, but the raids did nothing to bolster the reputation of the elite force.

Bob Kerrey, a former US senator who served in the Seals, agreed that the unit's 300 fighters and 1500 support personnel were being overused. But he said the nature of modern politics and warfare has left military commanders in a situation where they must choose between "a horrible choice and a bad choice".

Seal Team Six members joined with the CIA in something known as the Omega Programme, which hunted down Taliban fighters with fewer restrictions than other military units, the New York Times reported. Together, they performed "deniable operations" in Pakistan using a model with similarities to the Phoenix Programme, a Vietnam-era effort in which Special Ops troops performed interrogations and assassinations.

A "half-dozen" former members of the unit told the New York Times they were aware of civilian deaths that the team had caused. "Do I think bad things went on?" one former officer said. "Do I think there was more killing than should have been done? Sure." That same person added that there was a "natural inclination" to kill what were perceived as threats but that he doubted Seals intentionally killed people who didn't deserve it.

Some Team Six members used specialised tomahawk axes in raids, and at least one killed an insurgent with one. A former team member, Dom Raso, said the tomahawks were used for breaching doors, in hand-to-hand combat and for other roles. One former senior enlisted Seal said: "It's a dirty business. What's the difference between shooting them as I was told and pulling out a knife and stabbing them or hatcheting them?"

At times, the Seals cut off fingers or patches of scalp from dead militants for DNA analysis.

- Daily Mail, Washington Post-Bloomberg