Taliban knew Harry was in their midst

WASHINGTON—Afghan militants have said they knew that Britain’s Prince Harry had been among soldiers recently deployed in their country and had been gunning to get him, a US magazine reported Sunday.
A veteran Taliban field officer, deputy commander Mullah Abdul Karim, told Newsweek magazine that he sent his men out hunting for the prince after receiving an urgent message from Taliban intelligence in late December or early January that “an important chicken” had joined British troops in his area of operations.
“He is our special enemy,” said Karim, speaking to Newsweek via satellite phone from the eastern Helmland region of Afghanistan last week. “Our first option was to capture him as a prisoner, and the second, to kill him,” the magazine reported on its website Sunday.
The Taliban claimed to have learned that Prince Harry was serving with Britain’s troops in southern Afghanistan despite London’s best efforts to keep the secret under wraps. Karim said his men once or twice reported possible sightings of Harry’s armored convoy in their area of operations, but his fighters never got close to their target.
Britain pulled the prince out of Afghanistan fearing he would be specifically targeted by insurgents after a popular US news website last week revealed his presence in the battle zone. Prince Harry, home from his abandoned military mission to Afghanistan, said he hopes to return to combat zones as soon as possible. Harry returned to England on Saturday after serving for 10 weeks as a soldier in Afghanistan’s volatile Helmand province. His secret tour of duty — due to last until April — was abruptly aborted after a magazine and Web sites disclosed details of his whereabouts.
The prince’s mission had previously gone unreported as part of an agreement, designed to protect the 23-year-old prince and his fellow soldiers, between the Ministry of Defense and major news organizations.
“‘Angry’ would be the wrong word to use but I am slightly disappointed. I thought I could see it through to the end and come back with our guys,” Harry said after landing at an air force base where he was met by his father, Prince Charles, and brother, Prince William. Harry — a cornet, or second lieutenant — said he hoped to return to Afghanistan soon and has already asked his commanding officer to approve a new mission.
“I would love to go back out, and I’ve already mentioned it to him that I want to go out very, very soon,” he said. Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, head of Britain’s armed forces, said Sunday that any future deployment would depend on whether Harry poses a risk to his colleagues.
“I would have to be clear that the risks to the operation, in the widest sense of the people deployed on that operation, would be no higher than they would normally be,” Stirrup told Britain’s Sky News television. Gen. Sir Richard Dannatt, head of Britain’s army, said there is no immediate prospect of the prince returning to the front line for 12 to 18 months.
“Actually, the immediate prospect of Prince Harry going anywhere else is some way off in the future,” he said, explaining that the prince has a usual rest period and then a number of training and regimental commitments. But Harry’s elder brother — second in line to the British throne — is likely to serve overseas with the military, probably on board a Royal Navy warship, the defense ministry said.
William could be deployed later this year on a tour to areas such as the South Atlantic, the Persian Gulf, the Pacific Ocean or the West Indies, officials said.
“It’s our intention to give Prince William as full a taste of life in the Royal Navy as possible,” a Navy spokesman said on customary condition of anonymity. William — the presumptive future king of Britain — has trained as a fighter pilot and is eager to serve overseas, Harry said.

—Agencies