WASHINGTON (AFP) — 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.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
