RIYADH: A senior Taliban leader has lashed out against Prince Harry over the British royal’s claim that he killed 25 Afghans while serving as an Apache helicopter co-pilot and gunner in Afghanistan in 2012-2013.
In his recently released memoir “Spare,” the Duke of Sussex wrote that he had eliminated two dozen Taliban militants, and said he felt neither satisfaction nor shame about his actions.
However, Suhail Shaheen, speaking on the latest edition of Arab News “Frankly Speaking” current-affairs talk show, anchored by Katie Jensen, said Prince Harry ought to feel ashamed of what he did.
In his recently released memoir “Spare,” the Duke of Sussex wrote that he had eliminated two dozen Taliban militants. (AP)
“They claim they are a democracy, that they are the advocates and champions of human rights. And then they do this,” he said, condemning the prince for not only killing innocent Afghans but also boasting about it.
Shaheen said the men Harry killed were not “enemy combatants,” as described by the prince, but innocent villagers.
He demanded that the prince be brought to justice, saying: “If their laws are meant for the protection of human rights, then he should be tried (before a court of law). By his own admission he has acknowledged that he killed 25 people. It is a crime.”
Prince Harry said the killings took place near the end of his tour of Afghanistan in 2013. “If there’s people trying to do bad stuff to our guys, then we’ll take them out of the game,” he wrote in the memoir.
Describing the victims as “pieces being removed from a chessboard,” the prince wrote: “Baddies eliminated before they could kill Goodies.”
In the “Frankly Speaking” interview, Shaheen said Harry was not the only one who killed innocent Afghans. “Many other soldiers have done the same. There are many cases. A lot of families lost their breadwinners. There are thousands of videos of innocent people, villagers, farmers being killed in their fields.”
Prince Harry undertook two operational tours of duty in Afghanistan and qualified as an Apache aircraft commander. (Reuters/Alamy stock photo)
He said that if the killings had taken place in other countries, there would be calls for justice.
“If that had been in your country, (after) what you have said, (wouldn’t you) ask for justice? As a human being, it is your obligation and others to raise this,” Shaheen told Jensen.
The Taliban returned to power when the US-led Western troops withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021.
Tens of thousands of British troops served in Afghanistan, and more than 450 died between 2001 and the end of UK combat operations in 2014.
Prince Harry spent a decade in the British army, serving twice in Afghanistan.
