Prince Harry ‘turned on army representing his second family’ – former military leader

The BBC obtained a copy after it recently went on sale in Spain.

In his memoirs, the prince first reveals that he killed 25 enemy fighters, which is quite possible after two missions in the Helmand region of Afghanistan.

“It’s not a number that pleases me, but it doesn’t embarrass me,” she said.

“When I got caught up in the heat and confusion of battle, I didn’t think of these as 25 people. You can’t kill people if you look at them as people.”

“In fact, you can’t hurt people if you look at them as people. They were chess pieces removed from the board and the bad guys were done before they killed the good guys.”

In response to the prince’s comments, a senior Taliban commander, Anas Haqqani, tweeted: “Mr Harry! The ones you killed weren’t chess pieces, they were human beings and they had families waiting for their return.”

“I don’t expect (the International Criminal Court) to summon you or human rights activists to condemn your act, because they are deaf and blind to you,” he added.

Speaking to Forsys News, retired Commander Collins condemned the book as “a tragic money-making scam.”

Referring to Prince Harry’s revelations that he killed 25 enemy combatants, Colonel Collins said: “That’s not our pattern of behavior in the military, and we don’t think so.”

“Prince Harry has now turned against his second family, the military, who once embraced him after abandoning the family he was born into,” said the retired colonel, best known for an impassioned speech he gave to his troops on the eve of the war in Iraq.

He accused Prince Harry of taking a “strange” path and of “chasing after riches he doesn’t need”. which he so desperately needs,” he added.

Colonel Kemp, who was previously sent to Kabul in 2003 to take command of forces in Afghanistan, said the killed Taliban fighters were bad people and had no problem with Prince Harry revealing the number of those he killed , but objected to Harry’s portrayal of the movement: the Taliban are as if the military regards their insurgents as “inferior human beings and chess pieces to be crushed”.

He added that some soldiers actually talked about the people they had killed or wounded in one-on-one sessions, sometimes “as a way to almost decompress after a period of combat.”

Describing the slain Taliban fighters as chess pieces, Colonel Kemp said such comments could give “propaganda to the enemy”.

He added that such statements may have undermined Prince Harry’s safety and could result in retaliation.

“They always try to radicalize people and then recruit them, and we’ve already seen how the Taliban take advantage of that,” he said.

Prince Harry served briefly as a ground forward air controller in Afghanistan, spotting strikes and air strikes, before flying Apache helicopters on his second long mission.

The United States and its NATO allies invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 to topple the rule of the Taliban, who they say harbored Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaeda figures linked to the 9/11 attacks.

Adam Holloway, a Conservative MP for Gravesham who fought in Iraq with the British army, wrote in the Spectator newspaper that many soldiers felt it was inappropriate to announce the death toll.

“It’s not about the professional rules of the military. It’s about decency and respect for the lives we take,” he said.

As for Officer Ben McBain, who lost an arm and leg while serving with the Royal Marines in Afghanistan and whom Prince Harry has described as a hero after they met on several occasions, he said the prince should’ shut up”.

She wrote on Twitter: “Love you #Prince Harry but you need to shut up! This makes you think about the people he’s in touch with.”

“If they were any good, he’d be one of them. He told them to stop,” she added.

Another soldier, who is still serving, told the BBC that Harry’s comments were “very inappropriate for a female soldier”.

The soldier, who has flown several missions in Afghanistan, said it would be difficult for him to know how many “homicides” he was directly involved in, without tracing all the patrol reports identified at the time. Many people are shooting in more or less the same direction and this will make it difficult to even know who killed.

Like many servicemen, he said he was not interested in following up on the number. Often, those who write the books seem to care more about their kill stats.

While serving as a helicopter pilot in Afghanistan, Harry had better cockpit vision during military operations than most close combat personnel who used sensors and monitors.

He could also see the effect of his cannon and missiles, though the dust would have obscured close-up vision for his fellow fighters close to the ground, and he would have been able to review footage from the cockpit. But it is not always possible to count the bodies on the ground or to distinguish between the wounded and the dead.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he would not comment on the prince’s comments on the number of casualties, but added that he was “extremely grateful to our armed forces”.

A defense ministry spokesman said in response to a question about the number of people killed by the prince: “We do not comment on operational details for security reasons.”