Prince Harry says some British soldiers did not ‘necessarily agree’ with war in Afghanistan

The Duke of Sussex has said some British soldiers were not “necessarily” supportive of military efforts in Afghanistan.

During a livestreamed conversation with author and therapist Dr Gabor Mate, Harry discussed his military tours to Afghanistan.

In response to Dr Mate stating he did not align with the West during the conflict, the duke said: “One of the reasons why so many people in the United Kingdom were not supportive of our troops was because they assumed that everybody that was serving was for the war.

“But no, once you sign up, you do what you’re told to do.

“So there was a lot of us that didn’t necessarily agree or disagree, but you were doing what you were trained to do, you were doing what you were sent to do.”

Prince Harry during the livestreamed conversation on Saturday. Photograph: Random House

In January, British veterans criticised the Duke of Sussex’s claim he had killed 25 Taliban soldiers while serving with the British army in Afghanistan and warned the high-profile admission could increase the risk to his personal security.

The prince recounted in his memoir, Spare, his time as a gunner in an Apache attack helicopter while on his second tour of the country in 2012.

The retired army veteran Col Tim Collins said the prince’s disclosure was crass and “we don’t do notches on the rifle butt”.

Others said Harry had appeared wrongly to dehumanise the insurgents by describing them as “chess pieces removed from the board”, while the Taliban accused the prince of committing war crimes on his tour a decade ago.

Harry, 38, wrote in his memoir that “in the era of Apaches and laptops” it was possible to establish “with exactness how many enemy combatants I had killed. And it seemed to me essential not to be afraid of that number. So my number is 25. It’s not a number that fills me with satisfaction, but nor does it embarrass me.”

Later the prince acknowledged that he had dehumanised those who he had shot in battle: “When I found myself plunged in the heat and confusion of combat I didn’t think of those 25 as people. They were chess pieces removed from the board. Bad people eliminated before they could kill good people.”