16 Casualties among civilian casualties shot or bombed by British troops

 Guardian

The US army's archives contain descriptions of at least 21 separate occasions in which British troops are said to have shot or bombed Afghan civilians, including women and children.

Civilians shot by UK forces: read all cases from the war logs

The US army's archives contain descriptions of at least 21 separate occasions in which British troops are said to have shot or bombed Afghan civilians, including women and children.

The logs identify at least 26 people killed and another 20 wounded as a result. Some casualties were accidentally caused by air strikes, but many also are said to involve British troops firing on unarmed drivers or motorcyclists who come "too close" to convoys or patrols. Their injuries result from what are described as "warning shots" or "disabling shots" fired into the engine block, as required by the military's "escalation of force" regulations.

The number of dead and wounded alleged to have been caused by the British include 16 children, at least three women and a mentally ill man. The number is a small fraction of the 369 civilian casualties listed in the logs as due to coalition – mostly US – action in total.

More than 320 UK soldiers have also been killed since British troops were deployed to Helmand. But the war logs describe two disturbing clusters of British shootings that do not appear to have been properly investigated.

There is an unusual group of four shootings all in Kabul, in barely more than a single month, October 2007. The perpetrators are not identified in the logs and on one occasion the Americans report: "Investigation is controlled by the British. We [are] not able to get the complete story."

Among UK squads in Kabul at that time were a detachment of the Coldstream Guards. It is not known whether they were involved in any of the shootings, but their unofficial blog, ShinyCapstar, describes the atmosphere that October at Camp Souter in Kabul: "The overriding threat is that of suicide bombers of which there have been a number in the recent past."

The first incident is reported on 4 October 2007. The US log says a non-combatant was wounded with two or three bullets and taken by "the UK company" to Camp Warehouse. "An investigation is pending."

On 21 October, three civilian interpreters were said to be wounded when their vehicle "was fired upon by a UK vehicle near Camp Blackhorse … Investigation is controlled by the British. " Four days later "a warning shot was fired by a British soldier" which ricocheted and wounded a passerby. And on 6 November: "UK Coy reported force escalation". According to the Americans, the son of an Afghan general died of the subsequent gunshot wounds: "There could be some demonstration."

A second cluster of eight shootings, involve Royal Marine commandos in Helmand in the six months from October 2008. Further shootings involve British "mentoring units" sent to work with Afghan police and soldiers. There are also four recorded instances of air strikes called in by the UK resulting in casualties to civilians.

A Harrier bombing is listed as killing eight people. In another an F16 jet called in by a Rifles squad radioed afterwards that it could see "bodies being picked up in the target area". Seven civilians were wounded and one killed in that attack.

A further Apache helicopter strike outside Kandahar was claimed to have killed three Taliban: but it proved later that two women and two children had died.

A Hellfire missile blast from an unmanned drone over Helmand was also claimed to have killed six Taliban. It later transpired it had wounded two children.

British troops at a checkpoint in Sangin killed four and wounded three civilians in July. In August a 2 Para squad rocketed what it thought were insurgents, killing three civilians and wounding four. And in September an unarmed motorcyclist was shot dead by a British patrol.

There is also at least one episode of UK shootings which the war logs cover up. On 3 December 2006 the US database merely records that a convoy struck an IED in Kandahar, wounding three Royal Marines and causing 25 civilian casualties.

But Guardian correspondent Declan Walsh, who was on the scene, interviewed victims in hospital. Witnesses described a shooting spree in which vengeful or scared UK soldiers shot at bystanders, killing two and wounding five. The MoD never publicly investigated these allegations.

The Guardian put allegations of the two clusters of British shootings to the MoD three days ago. It said: "We have been unable to corroborate these claims in the short time available and it would be inappropriate to speculate on specific cases without further verification of the alleged actions."

Civilians shot by UK forces: read all cases from the war logs