Prince Harry on patrol in Helmand province in 2008. (AFP/Getty)
By India Today Web Desk: The Taliban have criticised Prince Harry and called him a ‘big mouth loser’ after he said he had killed 25 people in Afghanistan while serving in the military, reported The Independent.
Taliban commander Molavi Agha Gol went on to brand the Duke of Sussex a “big mouth loser who has been trying to get attention”.
“I do not even believe what he said about the Mujaheddin,” the commander said. “He is a loser and scared to go to a combat zone. We made history by kicking him and his army out of our homeland and he should be very angry about that.
“Our martyred Mujaheddin are in heaven, but his invading friends are burning in hell and I really hope I was in Helmand when he was there, to make him understand what real chess pieces are,” he added.
Prince Harry wrote in his upcoming memoir ‘Spare’ that he killed more than two dozen people in Afghanistan during his time as a soldier hunting Taliban extremists.
According to The Telegraph, which obtained an excerpt of the book which is due for release on January 10, Harry said the army taught him not to view members of the Taliban as people. He further stated that he is "neither proud nor ashamed” of his kill count as an Apache attack helicopter pilot.
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"In the era of Apaches and laptops," Harry said he was able to come up "with exactness how many enemy combatants I had killed. And it seemed to me essential not to be afraid of that number."
The 38-year-old Duke of Sussex served as a forward air controller in the British Royal Army from 2007-2008 and piloted the attack helicopter between 2012-2013, Al Jazeera reported.
"So my number is 25. It's not a number that fills me with satisfaction, but nor does it embarrass me," he wrote, adding that the number came from six missions during his second tour in the country.
Harry claimed that the army engrained in him the idea that the Taliban members he was fighting against were mere "chess pieces".
The remarks have been met with widespread criticism from members of the British military, with some warning that the duke has risked his own security and made himself a target. And now the Taliban itself has issued a statement condemning the royal.
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Abdul Qahar Balkhi, a spokesperson for the Taliban’s foreign affairs ministry, said: “The western occupation of Afghanistan is truly an odious moment in human history, and comments by Prince Harry [are] a microcosm of the trauma experienced by Afghans at the hands of occupation forces, who murdered innocents without any accountability.”
Anas Haqqani, a Taliban leader in Afghanistan, also condemned Harry’s remarks via Twitter, but added that few who killed Afghans “have your decency to reveal their conscience and confess to their war crimes”.
“The truth is what you’ve said; Our innocent people were chess pieces to your soldiers, military and political leaders. Still, you were defeated in that ‘game’ of white & black ‘square’,” Mr Haqqani continued. “I don’t expect that the [International Criminal Court] will summon you or the human rights activists will condemn you, because they are deaf and blind for you. But hopefully these atrocities will be remembered in the history of humanity.”
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