Prince Harry you killed innocent Afghans

The Taliban has denounced UK’s Prince Harry for his admission of killing 25 people while on military duty in Afghanistan. The officials alleged that the son of Britain’s King Charles committed war crimes and killed innocent civilians.

The condemnation came after Harry in his memoir revealed the number of people he killed during his second tour of Afghanistan.

“My number is 25. It’s not a number that fills me with satisfaction, but nor does it embarrass me,” he wrote in the book “Spare”.

“When I found myself plunged in the heat and confusion of combat I didn’t think of those 25 as people. They were chess pieces removed from the board. Bad people eliminated before they could kill Good people.”

Harry went further and tried to justify his action and said he killed those people because of the 9/11 attacks in the US and there is no room to show sympathy for the “enemies of humanity”.

Harry, 38, said he has been neither proud nor ashamed of the deaths. Harry served 10 years in the British military, rising to the rank of captain.

They were not chess pieces, they were humans

A senior Taliban aide, Anas Haqqani expressed his anger over Harry’s claims and said those who were killed were humans not chess pieces.

“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,” Haqqani said.

Senior Taliban aide, Anas Haqqani

The truth is what you’ve said, Haqqani furthered, adding “Our innocent people were chess pieces to your soldiers, military and political leaders. Still, you were defeated in that (game) of white and black (square).

Haqqani said that he doesn’t expect that the Intentional Criminal Court will summon Harry or the human rights activists will condemn his action, because they are “deaf and blind” to Harry’s case.

“But hopefully these atrocities will be remembered in the history of humanity,” he added.

Speaking to Harici, a top Taliban official anonymously said that it is not the fault of “Prince Harry”, killing of innocent Afghan is the nature of the UK’s government and its soldiers.

“Your fathers were here in Afghanistan in 1839, 1878, then in 1919 for killing and colonizing us. You have walked on the same path and have done nothing strange,” the official said, referring to Harry’s claim he killed 25 people.

The official added that Harry’s confession has revealed his real dynastic nature, which is covered under the “deceptive slogans of humanity and nonsense anti terror war.”

During their 20 years of presence, the foreign troops in general were responsible for the killing of thousands of innocent people, children, and women in Afghanistan, he added.

Harry needs to see a psychiatrist

While Mr. Harry is trying level best to show that he isn’t going through any mental illness, but still he needs to go to a psychiatrist, an Afghan expert said. “Killing innocent people and calling them chess pieces is not the work of a normal human being,” Obaidullah Basir said.

“Being happy to kill people without verification or a single check if they are terrorists or civilians, itself indicates an illness of cruelty and inhumanity,” the expert said.

“Personnel and family dispute and other complexity could definitely affect mental health and Mr. Harry has experienced this,” Dr. Matin Royeen, an Afghan-American peace educator told Harici.

Dr. Royeen said that Harry was very young when he lost his mother in a traffic accident and apart from this tragedy, Harry also grew up in the royal family where disputes among his parents were frequent. “Harry had risen in a dysfunctional family and this has affected him,” he said.

Harry has yet to find himself and he also feels abandoned by the royal family and now he wants to end its relation with the royal family forever.

Of course, when Harry returns to the battleground with such a mentality, he sees everyone as the enemy.

In the bigger picture, soldiers from any country, no matter from the US, UK, or others, view the people as an enemy in the battleground. “To justify their act, the soldiers kill people like they are trees, or chairs and on the battlefield they don’t have any human emotion and they see humans as an enemy that must be eliminated,” Dr. Royeen added.

Harry committed war crimes

Taliban Foreign Ministry Spokesman, Abdul Qahar Balkhi criticized Harry for his comments and said that the western occupation of Afghanistan is truly an odious moment in human history.

Prince Harry in a Spartan armoured vehicle in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, in 2008

Balkhi furthered that comments by Prince Harry are a microcosm of the trauma experienced by the Afghans in the past two decades at the hands of occupied forces. “These invaders have killed a number of innocent people and went out without any accountability,” he added.

Harry’s confession of killing people is a “small example” of humanitarian crimes committed by foreign troops in Afghanistan, said the Deputy Spokesman of Taliban, Bilal Karimi.

Several such incidents happened in different parts of the country and the troops of every “occupied country” had a history of “brutal past”, according to Karimi.

A former British Army commander in Afghanistan, Colonel Richard Kemp, said that Harry’s remarks undermine the good work he did.

Kemp said that Harry is indirectly suggesting the British Army trains “people, including him,” not to see the enemy as human beings, which is very far from the truth”.

Harry has served two tours in Afghanistan. His first tour was from 2007 to 2008 and the second from 2012 to 2013 and the British troops were mostly stationed in the south of Afghanistan.