Taliban member calls British Prince Harry ‘a war criminal’

Parts of the book by the British prince and Afghanistan veteran have already been pre-published. Top Taliban figures have called the prince a “war criminal.”

The number five in the line of succession to the throne served twice in Afghanistan ten years ago. During his second tour of duty, he fired at Taliban fighters from an Apache helicopter he piloted in Helmand province. By his own estimate, he killed 25 “bad guys” in the process. He saw them, he looked back, not as people but as ‘chess pieces’. “It is not a number that gives me pleasure, nor am I ashamed of it,” the prince writes. He saw the actions on video afterwards.

His statements have caused concern. It is unusual for war veterans to go into detail about what they did on the battlefield. For a member of the royal family, this is extra precarious. At the time, there were already concerns about Harry’s safety, both during his broadcasts and afterwards. Former chief national security adviser Kim Darroch has told the British press that he would have advised Harry against seeking publicity in this way. Harry himself claims not to feel safe on British soil.

War Tribunal

The reaction from Kabul, where the Taliban have been in power for a year and a half, was not long in coming. “Mr. Harry!” Taliban director Anas Haqqani tweeted, “The ones you killed weren’t chess pieces, they were people. They had families waiting for them to come home.’ Other Taliban officials claimed the prince would face a war tribunal. Thousands of Taliban fighters and 457 British soldiers were probably killed during the British intervention.

In his already much-discussed book, the 38-year-old prince describes how bad the relationship with the rest of his family is. For example, Harry writes that his old brother William had knocked him down in 2019, after he had said something unpleasant about his wife Kate. In this incident he broke his chain and the dog bowl was also killed. The brothers would also have asked their father Charles not to marry Camilla. After the death of his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth, Charles had told Harry that his wife Meghan was not welcome at the deathbed.

Harry also confessed to having snorted cocaine in his younger years. Harry was once a beloved ‘reserve prince’, but his popularity has faded since the much-discussed break with the royal family. Polls show that more and more Britons think he should give up his title of ‘Duke of Sussex’.

On Friday, Taliban member Anas Haqqani responded to Prince Harry’s book on Twitter. “Those you killed weren’t pawns, they were people. They had families waiting for them to return.” He does note, however, that “most killers of Afghans do not have the decency to reveal their conscience and confess to their war crimes.”