‘My number is 25’: Prince Harry’s staggering body count in Afghanistan

Prince Harry goes into detail about his time fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan in his new book and reveals exactly how many people he killed.

Prince Harry atop a military vehicle in the Helmand province, Southern Afghanistan in 2008.

Prince Harry has revealed he killed 25 people during his time in Afghanistan.

Writing in his autobiography Spare, the Duke of Sussex says he is neither proud nor ashamed of “taking human lives” as it was simply his job as a soldier.

The 38-year-old served two tours of duty against the Taliban, first as a forward air controller calling in air strikes in 2007-2008, then flying the attack helicopter in 2012-2013.

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Prince Harry atop a military vehicle in the Helmand province, Southern Afghanistan in 2008.

While working as an Apache helicopter pilot during the second, he flew on six missions that resulted in Taliban deaths.

The prince says that he did not think of the 25 as “people” but rather “chess pieces” that had to be taken off the board.

He also saw the insurgents he killed as “baddies eliminated before they could kill goodies”, he writes.

Soldiers do not usually know how many enemies they have wiped out, but Harry alleges he watched footage of each of his kills when he got back to base.

Prince Harry on patrol through the deserted town of Garmisir in Southern Afghanistan.

Harry practices his rugby skills with members of the crew during a break in their duties in the desert of Helmand province. Picture: AFP PHOTO/JOHN STILLWELL

Video cameras mounted on the nose of his Apache helicopter enabled him to assess his missions — and determine with certainty how many he had killed.

“My number is 25. It’s not a number that fills me with satisfaction, but nor does it embarrass me,” he says.

Harry was deployed as a forward air controller in the Helmand province during his tour in 2007.

He was “very proud” to serve there for more than two months before his location was leaked.

His first tour was conducted under a strict news blackout for security reasons, which was agreed by British media outlets. He was forced to return home when a foreign publication broke the embargo.

Harry mans a machine gun on the observation post at JTAC Hill.

Prince Harry on patrol through the deserted town of Garmisir.

He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant with the Household Cavalry on in April 2008 then retrained as a helicopter pilot in the Army Air Corps.

Harry returned to Afghanistan in 2012 as a co-pilot and gunner at Camp Bastion for 20 weeks before leaving the military in March 2015.

All up he served for 10 years in the British Army, rising to the rank of captain, and has described his time in the military as his formative years.

He said at the time that killing insurgents was part of his job, and that “we take a life to save a life”.

During his time in Afghanistan Harry insisted he wasn’t a hero. Picture: AFP / John Stillwell

Prince Harry leaves RAF Brize Norton in Oxfordshire, in southern England, with his father Prince Charles after returning from Afghanistan.

He justified his actions because of his memory of the 9/11 attacks in the United States, and after meeting families of the victims.

Those responsible and their sympathisers were “enemies of humanity” and fighting them was an act of vengeance for a crime against humanity, he added.

Harry has since voiced concern about his security, not just because of his royal status but also because of his time fighting Islamist extremists.

The Sun quoted the extracts from the Spanish version of the autobiography it obtained after mistakenly being put on sale in bookshops on Thursday before being withdrawn.

— with AFP