A senior Taliban leader has told Prince Harry that the militants he killed in Afghanistan were “not chess pieces, they were humans”.
In response to the prince’s forthcoming memoir, Spare, Taliban warlord Anas Haqqani tweeted: “Mr Harry! The ones you killed were not chess pieces, they were humans; they had families who were waiting for their return.
“Among the killers of Afghans, not many have your decency to reveal their conscience and confess to their war crimes.”
In the highly anticipated book, the prince claimed to have shot 25 fighters dead, adding that he didn’t think of them as “people” while manning the gun.
Rather, the Duke of Sussex saw them as “chess pieces” that had been taken off the board.
He adds: “It was not something that filled me with satisfaction, but I was not ashamed either.”
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Getty Images)
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Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images)
A former senior military officer said the comments were “ill-judged” and could lead to attacks on Brit soldiers overseas.
Colonel Richard Kemp, who commanded the British forces in Afghanistan in 2003, said the claim that Brit soldiers envisage their enemy as subhuman was particularly risky.
He said Harry’s remarks “were probably ill-judged for two reasons. One is his suggestion that he killed 25 people will have reincited those people who wish him harm.”
The colonel, who retired in 2006, told Sky News his issue was that Harry “characterised” the British Army as training him to consider the enemy as less than human, which he said is quite the contrary in reality.
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Getty Images)
He added that the comments could lead to attacks on British soldiers overseas or even turn Harry into more of a target than he already is because he “resurrected” memories of the war.
The colonel believes the memoir will damage Harry’s reputation
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