Prince Harry's memoirs claims he killed 25 Taliban fighters while fighting in Afghanistan for the British Army, drawing condemnation from some British security and military leaders and an angry response from the Taliban.
Harry revealed the sum in his upcoming autobiography "Spare," according to British tabloid The Daily Telegraph, which received a copy of the Spanish version before its Tuesday, January 10 release.
25. "It's not a number that makes me happy, but it doesn't humiliate me," Harry writes. He also called Taliban insurgents "chess pieces" taken off the board.
CNN has asked Penguin Random House for an advance copy of the book. On Thursday, UK media quoted translated parts from Spanish-language editions.
Military leaders said the prince's words could endanger his safety and tarnish the British Army.
Kim Darroch, the UK's former national security adviser and British Ambassador to the US from 2016 to 2019, told Sky News he would have recommended Harry against making the statements. Colonel Richard Kemp, a retired British army officer, told the same network they "degraded" his character and "unjustly" tarnished the British Army.
"His claim that he killed 25 people will have re-incited those who seek him harm," Kemp added. Let's hope they don't succeed, but that's one problem.
"The other problem I had with his views was that he represented the British Army basically as having indoctrinated him and other soldiers to consider his enemies as less than human, just as chess pieces on a board to be swiped off, which is not true. "The reverse is true," he said.
Harry's statements also angered the Taliban, which returned to power in 2021 and is again repressing women's rights.
Harry! Anas Haqqani, acting adviser to the minister of interior and son of Jalaluddin Haqqani, remarked, "The ones you killed were not chess pieces, they were humans; they had families who were waiting for their homecoming."
"Among the killers of Afghans, not many have your decency to reveal their conscience and confess to their war crimes," he added. Harry's new book details William's attack claim, drugs admission, and Camilla concerns.
Harry served 10 years in the British Army. He served in Afghanistan twice: 2007–2008 and 2012–2013. He became an Apache Aircraft commander and captain in 2011. In 2015, Army Captain Harry Wales retired.
Harry told the Telegraph that he watched each "kill" via his Apache helicopter's nose-mounted camera after returning to base.
On Thursday, former Royal Marine Ben McBean, who served with Harry in Afghanistan, tweeted: "Love you #PrinceHarry but you need to shut speaking! Wonders who he's with. "Good people would have advised him to quit by now."
McBean may have been alluding to Harry's military comments or to a number of other revelations in his biography that have roiled Britain's royal family.
Harry's father, King Charles III, and his brother, Prince William, face additional difficulty after early book reports dominated UK front pages.
The Guardian's assertion that William assaulted Harry in 2019 was the most shocking.