Protests have broken out in southern Afghanistan following Prince Harry 's claim in his new memoir that he killed 25 he described as Taliban fighters while on his second tour with the British military in the country.
Around 20 staff and students from a university in Helmand — the province where British forces were largely concentrated during the NATO and U.S.-led coalition operations in Afghanistan — took part in a demonstration on Sunday.
"We condemn his (Prince Harry's) action which is against all norms of humanity," one demonstrator said.
Others carried posters showing Harry's portrait with a red 'x' across it.
Sayed Ahmad Sayed, a teacher at the university, criticised Harry for his role in UK military operations in Afghanistan.
"The cruelties which have been committed by Prince Harry, his friends or by anyone else in Helmand or anywhere in Afghanistan is unacceptable, cruel. These acts will be remembered by history," Sayed said at the protest.
As part of a number of explosive claims made in his tell-all memoir, Spare, Harry said that he killed 25 Taliban militants while serving as an Apache helicopter copilot gunner in Afghanistan in 2012-2013.
The prince wrote that he did not think of those he killed as "people" but as "chess pieces" that were removed from the board and "Baddies eliminated before they could kill Goodies".
NATO and US troops withdrew in August, 2021 from the country after 20 years of warfare there and running air operations in support of the Western-backed Afghan government's fight against a Taliban insurgency.
Their withdrawal set the stage for the Taliban's rapid return to power that month.
Taliban officials were left outraged by Harry's decision to put a number on those he killed and liken them to chess pieces.
"We ask the international community to put this person (Prince Harry) on trial, and we should get compensation for our losses," said Mullah Abdullah, who lost four family members in what he described as a U.K. airstrike in 2011 that hit his family home in the Nahr-e-Saraj area of Helmand.
"We lost our house, life, and family members. We lost our livelihood and also our loved ones," said Abdullah, while visiting the graves of the family members he lost in the strike.
The media director for the Taliban governor of Helmand, Mawlavi Mohammad Qasim, said Harry's claims in his memoirs "exposed the real face of the Western world."
"It is a clear indication of their cruel and horrific actions," he said.
