Monitoring Desk
KABUL: The Taliban on Friday criticized UK’s Prince Harry following he said in his book that he had killed 25 persons in Afghanistan when serving as a helicopter pilot, describing them as “chess pieces removed from the board”.
Prince Harry’s personal book “Spare” went on sale in Spain days before its launch on January 10, 2023. He discloses the depth of the rift between him and his brother Prince William and other revelations such as drug-taking.
Prince Harry admits killings of Afghans
In one section, the prince recounts his two trips to Afghanistan, first as a forward air controller in 2007-08 and again in 2012, when Harry was a co-pilot gunner in Apache helicopter and the number of persons he had killed.
A Taliban leader Anas Haqqani criticized Harry over the remarks, saying those you (Harry) killed were Afghans who had families. He tweeted, “Mr. Harry! The ones you killed were not chess pieces, they were human beings”. He said that the prince had committed “war crimes”.
He posted that the truth is what you (Harry) said innocent people of Afghanistan were chess pieces to your military, soldiers, and political leaders. Anas Haqqani tweeted that “still, you were defeated in that ‘game’.”
Abdul Qahar Balkhi, spokesman for the Taliban-led Afghan ministry of foreign affairs also criticized Harry’s remarks. He said that the comment by UK’s Prince Harry is a microcosm of the trauma experienced by the people of Afghanistan at the hands of occupation forces who killed innocent people without any accountability.
