Tag: taliban

Prince Harry tells Stephen Colbert he wrote about killing 25 Afghan fighters to ‘reduce’ suicides

Prince Harry slammed the “dangerous spin” that he “boasted” about killing 25 Taliban fighters in Afghanistan in his new memoir, “Spare.”

The Duke of Sussex condemned the “dangerous lie” after he was widely criticized for discussing the killings in his book — a move his former comrades say is a “betrayal” that could “incite” assassination attempts. 

Appearing on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert” in an episode aired Tuesday, the exiled royal accused the press of taking his words out of context.

“I think one of the most dangerous lies that they have told, is that I somehow boasted about the number of people I have killed in Afghanistan,” Harry said.

“I would say that if I heard anybody else, anyone, boasting about that kind of thing, I would be angry. But it’s a lie.”

“My words are not dangerous, but the spin of my words is very dangerous to my family,” he added.

Harry served in the British Army Air Force for ten years where he was twice deployed to Afghanistan and rose to the level of captain.

In his protocol-shattering memoir, Harry called his victims “chess pieces taken off a board, bad guys eliminated before they kill the good guys,” and said that he did not feel “ashamed” for his actions because he’d been conditioned by the military to not feel anything.

Prince Harry mans the 50mm machine gun at an observation post on Jan. 2, 2008 in southern Afghanistan.
Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images

“You can’t kill people if you see them as people,” he wrote. “They trained me to ‘other’ them, and they trained me well.”

When Colbert noted that news of Harry’s military killings was not new information, Harry went on, “Almost ten years to the day my face was splattered all over the front pages because someone asked me the question, while I was still in Afghanistan if I had killed anybody from an attack helicopter. And I said ‘yes.’”

Prince Harry patrols through the deserted town of Garmisir, Afghanistan on Jan. 2, 2008.
Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images

Harry continued to defend his striking admission, saying he chose to share it in a bid to reduce veteran suicide.

“I made a choice to share it because having spent nearly two decades working with veterans all around the world, I think the most important thing is to be honest and to be able to give space to others to be able to share their experiences without any shame,” the 38-year-old said.

“And my whole goal and my attempt with sharing that detail is to reduce the number of suicides.”

Harry’s blasé recollection also sparked outrage from the Taliban, which called for him to face trial for war crimes.



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Ashraf Ghani Says ‘In Talks To Return’ To Afghanistan After Fleeing

“I support the government initiative of ongoing negotiations with Abdullah Abdullah and former President Hamid Karzai,” former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said

Abu Dhabi: Former Afghan president Ashraf Ghani said Wednesday he supports talks between the Taliban and top former officials, and denied allegations that he transferred large sums of money out of the country before fleeing to the United Arab Emirates.Ghani — making his first appearance since leaving Kabul on Sunday as the Taliban encircled the capital, a departure that ultimately resulted in their full takeover — reiterated that he had left in order to spare the country more bloodshed.

He said in the recorded video message, broadcast on his Facebook page, that he had no intention of remaining in exile in the Gulf nation and was “in talks” to return home.He also said he was making efforts to “safeguard the rule of Afghans over our country”, without offering details.”For now, I am in the Emirates so that bloodshed and chaos is stopped,” Ghani said from the UAE, which confirmed Wednesday he was being hosted there on “humanitarian grounds”.He voiced support for talks held Wednesday between senior members of the Taliban movement, Ghani’s predecessor Hamid Karzai, and Abdullah Abdullah, who headed the ultimately failed peace process.”I want the success of this process,” he said.

It was Abdullah — a long-time rival of Ghani — who announced the president had left the country on Sunday, suggesting he would be judged harshly.But Ghani insisted he had left for the good of the country, and not his own wellbeing.

“Do not believe whoever tells you that your president sold you out and fled for his own advantage and to save his own life,” he said. “These accusations are baseless… and I strongly reject them.”

“I was expelled from Afghanistan in such a way that I didn’t even get the chance to take my slippers off my feet and pull on my boots,” he added, noting that he had arrived in the Emirates “empty-handed”.

He claimed that the Taliban had entered Kabul despite an agreement not to do so.”Had I stayed there, an elected president of Afghanistan would have been hanged again right before the Afghans’ own eyes,” he said.The first time the Taliban seized Kabul, when they established their regime in 1996, they dragged former communist president Mohammed Najibullah from a United Nations office where he had been sheltering, and hanged him in a public street after torturing him.

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