Taliban react to Prince Harry’s claims he killed 25 fighters in Afghanistan
Misty Severi
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A senior Taliban leader on Friday responded to Prince Harry’s claim that he viewed the 25 Taliban soldiers he killed in Afghanistan as “chess pieces” instead of people.
The revelation comes in response to an account from Harry’s new memoir Spare, which is set to come out next week. However, some passages from the book have already been leaked after a mistake in Spain caused several copies of the book to be sold early.
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In the book, Harry claimed that he viewed the Taliban soldiers he killed during his 10 years in the British Army as “chess pieces” that were taken off the board.
“It was not something that filled me with satisfaction, but I was not ashamed either,” the prince wrote, according to Sky News, which obtained a copy of the book.
Taliban leader Anas Haqqani heatedly responded to the passage, slamming the British prince for not viewing the rebels as people with families.
“Mr. Harry! The ones you killed were not chess pieces, they were humans; they had families who were waiting for their return,” Haqqani tweeted. “Among the killers of Afghans, not many 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 ‘squares.'”
https://twitter.com/AnasHaqqani313/status/1611315062018543616
The Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan after the United States withdrew its forces in 2021.
Current and former British military leaders are also upset with the royal for his comments. Retired Col. Richard Kemp, who commanded British forces in Afghanistan from 2003-2006, said the prince’s words were ill-advised for two reasons. One of them being fear that it could incite harm to current British forces in Afghanistan.
“The other problem I found with his comments was that he characterized the British Army basically as having trained him and other soldiers to see his enemy as less than human, just as chess pieces on a board to be swiped off, which is not the case. It’s the opposite of the case,” Kemp told Sky News.
A former British Marine who served with Harry in Afghanistan also told the prince to “shut up” and pondered whether the prince had good people around him since they allowed him to publish a possibly dangerous passage. Harry had served two tours in Afghanistan during his stint in the military.
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Other surprising revelations in the book included a snippet that claimed Prince William, Harry’s older brother, started a physical altercation with Harry over his wife, Meghan Markle, the Duchess of Sussex. The royal family has so far declined to comment on any of the accusations in the book.
The book will be available for widespread release on Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023. The release comes a month after Meghan and Harry released a six-part Netflix documentary series that included insight into the couple’s decision to leave the royal scene and accusations of unconscious racial bias within the royal family.