Taliban respond to Prince Harry’s claim he killed 25 soldiers in Afghanistan – National | 24CA News

Taliban leaders criticized Prince Harry on Friday after the royal wrote in his new memoir Spare that he killed 25 fighters throughout his second tour of Afghanistan.

The Duke of Sussex, who served within the British Army first as a ahead air controller then as a helicopter pilot, wrote within the memoir that the 25 Taliban fighters have been “chess pieces removed from the board.”

Harry, 38, wrote that he was neither proud nor ashamed of the deaths, The Telegraph reported after receiving an advance copy of the ebook set for launch subsequent week.

“When I found myself plunged in the heat and confusion of combat I didn’t think of those 25 as people,” Harry wrote, as per Reuters.

Anas Haqqani, a senior Taliban aide, responded to Harry’s claims on Twitter.

“Mr. Harry! The ones you killed were not chess pieces, they were humans; they had families who were waiting for their return,” he wrote. “Among the killers of Afghans, not many have your decency to reveal their conscience and confess to their war crimes.”

Haqqani mentioned he didn’t anticipate the International Criminal Court (ICC) to sentence Harry “because they are deaf and blind for you.”

“But hopefully these atrocities will be remembered in the history of humanity,” he concluded.

Abdul Qahar Balkhi, spokesperson for the Taliban-led Afghan international affairs ministry, additionally criticized Harry’s feedback.

“The western occupation of Afghanistan is truly an odious moment in human history and comments by Prince Harry is a microcosm of the trauma experienced by Afghans at the hands of occupation forces who murdered innocents without any accountability,” he mentioned.

The Duke served in Afghanistan twice, first from 2007-2008, and once more when he flew an assault helicopter from 2012-2013.

The Telegraph reported that that is the primary time the prince has mentioned his kill rely throughout navy service, which “is likely to increase concern about his personal safety.”

Britain’s Ministry of Defence declined to remark publicly, as reported by Reuters. Harry and his representatives have additionally not commented publicly.

Some former members of the British navy, nonetheless, have spoken out about what Harry selected to reveal by way of his writing.

Colonel Richard Kemp, a former Army commander in Afghanistan, advised the BBC that Harry’s disclosures about his service in Afghanistan have been “misleading”

“I think he’s wrong when he says in his book that insurgents were seen just as being virtually unhuman – subhuman perhaps – just as chess pieces to be knocked over,” Kemp mentioned. “That’s not the case at all. And it’s not the way the British Army trains people as he claims.”

Kemp continued: “I think that sort of comment that doesn’t reflect reality, is misleading and potentially valuable to those people who wish the British forces and British government harm, so I think it was an error of judgement.”

And former Royal Marine Ben McBean, who ABC stories misplaced two limbs in Afghanistan and shared an RAF flight out of the battle zone with the prince, tweeted that Harry must “shut up.”

McBean adopted up with a tweet expressing his disappointment that the prince has shared a lot private details about his household affairs.

Harry’s extremely private ebook Spare will likely be launched on Jan. 10. It discloses the depth of the rift between the prince and his brother William, the inheritor to the throne, and different revelations similar to drug-taking and the way he misplaced his virginity.

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Spokespeople for King Charles and Prince William have, to this point, declined to touch upon the small print popping out of Harry’s memoir.

Harry will seem on each ITV in Britain and CBS News’ 60 Minutes on Jan. 8 to debate Spare and its obvious revelations concerning the Royal Family.

In a preview clip for the ITV interview, shared earlier this week, Harry says he hopes he can at some point restore his relationships together with his brother and father, King Charles III.

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“I would like to get my father back; I would like to have my brother back,” Harry tells new anchor and royal correspondent Tom Bradby, who he’s recognized for about 20 years.

Harry added that the connection together with his notoriously tight-lipped household “never needed to be this way,” however that they’ve “shown absolutely no willingness to reconcile.”

— with information from Global News’ Michelle Butterfield and Reuters

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