Veterans criticize Prince Harry for confessing to Afghan killings

Senior British veterans have criticized the Duke of Sussex’s claim that he killed 25 Taliban soldiers while serving with the British Army in occupied Afghanistan, and warned that the high-profile admission could increase the risk to his personal life. security.

Retired Army veteran Colonel Tim Collins, best known for delivering a pep talk before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, said the prince’s speech about the kill count was blunt and “we don’t cut a rifle butt.”

Other veterans have said that Harry appears to have mistakenly dehumanized the militants by describing them as “chess pieces taken off the board” while the Taliban accused the prince of war crimes during his time in Afghanistan a decade ago.

Anas Haqqani, an influential member of the Afghan Taliban government, said: “Those you killed were not chess pieces, they were people; they had families waiting for their return. Among the murderers of the Afghans, not many have the decency to reveal their conscience and confess to their war crimes.”

The body count is claimed in Harry’s autobiography Spare.

Prince Harry talks in his memoir about being a gunner on an Apache attack helicopter during his second deployment to Afghanistan in 2012. The prince said it was possible to ascertain the number of militants he had killed because he could view surveillance footage after each mission during which he flew missions.

Harry writes that “in the age of Apaches and laptops” one could “determine exactly how many enemy combatants I killed.”

“And it seemed to me important not to be afraid of this number,” the Duke of Sussex confesses. “So my number is 25. It’s not a number that brings me satisfaction, but it doesn’t bother me either.”

Prince Harry later admitted in fact that he dehumanized those he shot in combat: “When I found myself in the heat and confusion of combat, I didn’t think of those twenty-five as human beings. They were chess pieces taken off the board. The bad people were eliminated before they could kill the good people.”

Retired Colonel Collins, in an interview with Forces News, disagreed with Harry’s comments: “Among his claims is that he killed 25 people in Afghanistan. It’s not how you behave in the army; it’s not how we think. He let the team down a lot. We do not notch the butt of a rifle. We have never done this.”

Other Afghan veterans wonder how sure Harry can be of how many people he has killed. One of them said: “I have never heard anyone talk about the number of murders, it is rude and, frankly, disgusting. Taking a life is the most serious thing you could ever do in operations, serious people don’t discuss it as a game.”

While it is not uncommon for the military to review surveillance footage to analyze how a mission went, the Afghan veteran added: “You can’t always tell who was killed or wounded. No one will enter the destroyed building to check.”

Former commander of the British Army in Afghanistan, retired Colonel Richard Kemp, said the comments could put Prince Harry’s safety at greater risk. Taliban-backed extremists may now be “motivated to kill Harry” because of the memories that were “resurrected” by his comments, he told Sky News.

Prince Harry is suing the UK government over a decision to withdraw taxpayer-funded royal protection for him and his family after he stepped down from royal duties in 2020. At one point in the trial, his lawyers said the prince “doesn’t feel safe” visiting the UK after a string of threats and incidents, including from far-right extremists.

The comments of some British Muslims have caused concern, including those who have publicly supported Harry and Meghan in the past, writes The Guardian.

Zillur Rahman, a defamation lawyer, said last year that the “false and upsetting” articles written about the couple were “exactly what the Muslim community was facing.” But in regards to Harry’s comments about the killing of 25 people, he said: “We saw that attention was focused on a number of killings in Afghanistan, in which innocent civilians were involved in some cases. I don’t know who was targeted in Harry’s case, but of course I find them unpleasant. It’s entirely possible that this was how his life was when he was in the army, and I would like to hope that he went ahead and changed his views, but if this is what the army instilled in their staff and how they were taught to look at others, then it should be studied. Is this the mindset of the army and does it explain why some of the atrocities were committed?

A spokesman for the British Ministry of Defense said the military would not discuss Harry’s statement about the number of people he had killed: “We do not comment on operational details for security reasons.”

British troops were involved in combat operations in occupied Afghanistan between 2001 and 2014 and then in training activities before the West finally fled the country in chaotic circumstances in the summer of 2021. The Taliban seized power in Kabul in August of that year, even before the final withdrawal of US troops and their satellites was completed.