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Prince Harry was ‘lucky’ to make it out of Afghanistan alive, a senior Taliban commander has claimed, while revealing that there were numerous attempts to capture him.
‘When your Prince came here and flew his Apache helicopter and bombarded the Mujahideen [holy warriors] it meant that our fighters did not exactly have a soft spot for him,’ Qari Nasrullah, a Taliban fighter, said.
The young royal has completed two tours of the country – first in 2008 and then again at the end of 2012 when he served for 20 weeks as a helicopter gunner.
Speaking at a guarded compound in north-west Pakistan, Nasrullah told the Daily Mirror that there were a number of plots to capture and possibly kill the 29-year-old.
‘As far as the Mujahideen were concerned he was just an ordinary soldier who was fighting for America. This is how we view him. He may well be a Prince in Britain, but to us he is merely a common soldier,’ he said.
‘There were many plans to capture him but – maybe it was his good luck – he managed to escape.’
In 2012 there had been reports that Afghan rebel leaders had said they were trying to do everything in their power to capture the prince.
‘We are using all our strength to get rid of him, either by killing or kidnapping,’ Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters by telephone at the time.