Gung-ho Prince Harry breaks ‘the soldiers’ code’, says Peter Leahy

Expert says Prince Harry has made himself a terror target after claiming he killed 25 Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

Prince Harry makes early morning helicopter pre-flight checks during his deployment to southern Afghanistan in 2012. Picture: John Stillwell

Former chief-of-army Peter Leahy says Prince Harry has ­defied a “long line of tradition” in military service and made himself a terror target, after the King’s youngest son made bombshell claims he killed 25 Taliban fighters while serving in Afghanistan.

In his explosive memoir, Spare, Prince Harry says he regarded his victims in Afghanistan – where he served as a helicopter pilot – as “chess pieces” and was neither proud nor ashamed of the killings, writing that it was “not a number that fills me with satisfaction, but nor does it embarrass me”.

The latest revelations, leaked less than a week before Spare’s official release, have drawn the ire of several high-ranking veterans in Britain, who have accused the prince of “painting a target on his back” and “betraying the people he fought alongside”.

The Afghanistan claim comes amid a spate of allegations levelled against the royal family, in which Prince Harry recounts details of drug use, soliciting a clairvoyant to contact his late mother, Princess Diana, and begging his father not to marry Camilla Parker Bowles.

Cartoon: Johannes Leak

Retired Lieutenant-General Leahy, who served as chief-of-army from 2002 to 2008 and met Prince Harry on several occasions, said the 38-year-old prince was undermining his own security and defying the traditions of the armed forces.

“By skiting about his kills he’s going against a long line of tradition that says professional soldiers don’t talk about these things,” he said.

“People who are closely involved in the events know what’s happened, and it’s not something you should be excessively proud of even though you’ve done it in the pursuit of national security. It’s something that some people suffer from – the fact that they’ve been involved in killing people on the battlefield – and it can revisit them later on.”

Prince Harry in southern Afghanistan in 2008.

The Duke of Sussex – who repeatedly raised concerns about the security of his own family in his multimillion-dollar Netflix documentary – trained and served alongside Australian Defence Force personnel in Afghanistan.

In 2015, the prince spent four weeks at army barracks in Darwin, Perth and Sydney while he was seconded to the ADF.

Lieutenant-General Leahy – who led the Australian Army at the height of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – warned the prince’s comments could make him a “legitimate target” in the eyes of the Taliban and their supporters around the world.

“We also know that the Taliban has supported other terror groups, so I think he’s made himself a target to terror groups around the world,” he said.

In the UK, former British Army Colonel Richard Kemp said the duke’s decision to divulge private details of his service in Afghanistan “undermined” 10 years of “good work”, while Colonel Bob Stewart described his comments as “extremely distasteful”.

Former Royal Marine Ben McBean, who was hailed by Prince Harry as a war hero after he lost an arm and a leg in Afghanistan, urged the duke to “shut up”.

While the 400-page memoir has been the subject of tight security to prevent any leaks, an early snafu by Spanish booksellers saw the publication put on sale a week ahead of schedule, adding further fuel to the growing feud between the royal family and the Sussexes.

Prince Harry during his secondment to the ADF in 2015. Picture: Australian Defence Force

In one of the most damning passages in the book, the duke recounts how Prince William allegedly knocked him to the ground during a heated argument about Meghan Markle, after the Prince of Wales described her as “difficult”, “rude” and “abrasive”.

Prince Harry refers to Prince William as both his “beloved brother” and his “arch-nemesis”.

In another episode, he recounts how he and his brother begged their father not to marry Camilla, and writes he was aware she was the “other woman”, who could one day become his “wicked stepmother”. He later accuses Camilla of leaking confidential details of her conversation with him and William to the press.

Prince Harry further admits to taking cocaine while at Eton College and says he lost his virginity to an older woman when he was 17, in the field behind a “very busy pub”. He reportedly describes the exchange as a “humiliating episode” with an older woman who liked “macho horses and who treated me like a young stallion”.

Spare also reveals Prince Harry visited a psychic, who said she could commune with Diana beyond the grave, prompting him to ask whether he could be driven through the Paris tunnel at the same speed his mother was travelling on the night she died.

Buckingham Palace has not commented on the book’s allegations or any of the claims made by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.