You’ve put British troops at risk of revenge attacks with your Taliban kill count boast Harry, ex top brass warn
PRINCE Harry has been accused of putting British troops at risk of revenge attacks by revealing he killed 25 Taliban militants during a combat tour of Afghanistan.
Retired military officer Colonel Richard Kemp said the wayward heir's comments in his memoir Spare betrayed comrades he fought alongside.
The former commander of troops in Afghanistan warned the revelations would increase threats to the safety of both the Duke of Sussex and the Armed Forces.
He said: “It undermines his personal security. He has shot himself in the foot.
“Fighting in Afghanistan, Harry gained a very strong reputation both in the Army and in the country.
“These comments will damage that reputation and he won’t be looked on in quite the same light, by people who thought highly of him before, including me.”
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He added on Sky News: "This will incite some people to attempt an attack on British soldiers anywhere in the world.
"The impact on his own personal security is even greater."
Col Kemp also blasted the prince for saying that he didn’t see his Taliban victims as people.
He said: “He is suggesting the British Army trains people, including him, not to see the enemy as human beings, which is very far from the truth.
“The Army is extremely careful to differentiate between innocent civilians and fighters on the battlefield.”
Meanwhile Colonel Tim Collins, known for a pre-battle speech he made in Iraq, said Harry's conduct is "not how we behave in the Army".
"Amongst his assertions is a claim that he killed 25 people in Afghanistan.
"That's not how you behave in the Army; it's not how we think.
"He has badly let the side down. We don't do notches on the rifle butt. We never did."
He also accused Harry of taking a path that is "alien" to those in the UK and the Commonwealth, adding that the duke is "pursuing US identity politics and casting slurs or racism around where none exists".
"I wonder whose path he has chosen? In the end I see only disappointment and misery in his pursuit of riches he does not need and his rejection of family and comradely love that he badly needs," Col Collins added.
"His latest revelations in his memoir are clearly a tragic money-making scam to fund the lifestyle he can't afford and someone else has chosen."
And Harry’s hero Ben McBean – who lost an arm and leg in Afghanistan – has also been critical of the prince’s revelations.
'YOU JUST DON'T SPEAK ABOUT IT'
The ex-Royal Marine said: “Love you Prince Harry but you need to shut up!
“Makes you wonder about the people he’s hanging around with.
He rewatched films of his kills from the gunship’s nose-mounted camera when he returned to base at Camp Bastion.
Harry said the technology meant: “I could always say precisely how many enemy combatants I’d killed.”
He wrote: “So my number: 25. It wasn’t a number that gave me any satisfaction. But neither was it a number that made me feel ashamed.
“In the heat and fog of combat, I didn’t think of those 25 as people. I’d been trained to ‘other-ize’ them.”
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The MoD refused to comment on Harry’s claims he had killed 25 militants.
A spokesman said: “We do not comment on operational details for security reasons.”