Harry makes al Qaeda "honor" roll

Times:

Prince Harry returns to England today, a hero to the Army, a changed man in the eyes of the public and a target for jihadists.

As the Queen, the Prime Minister and the Chief of the Defence Staff queued up to heap praise on the 23-year-old second lieutenant, protection for the Prince is to be upgraded. Al-Qaeda websites posted death threats against him yesterday after the worldwide coverage of his ten weeks in Helmand province, Afghanistan. In stark contrast, army message boards carried unanimous praise for the Prince.

The Times has seen messages posted on a password-protected al-Qaeda forum, al-Ekhlaas, calling for Prince Harry to be beheaded and a video of his murder to be sent to the Queen.

Arabic news items and photographs of the Prince on duty in Helmand were added to the jihadi sites. One posting said: “Nothing will break the heart of his grandmother but only if she loses him. My dear brothers in Allah, carry on provoking to kidnap this precious infidel.”

The Taleban also vowed to step up attacks on British Forces because of the Prince’s deployment. “Prince Harry’s presence in Afghanistan encourages our fighters to launch more attacks on British Forces,” Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taleban told The Times by telephone from an undisclosed location. “The Royal Family is now directly participating in the aggression against Muslims.” In an interview last week, Prince Harry acknowledged that on his return to Britain he could be a “top target” for home-grown jihadists who were sympathetic to the Taleban.

The al-Ekhlass forum has recently carried postings from a group calling itself Al-Qaeda in Britain but its name did not appear yesterday in traffic on the forum that was monitored and translated by the Site Intelligence Group in the United States.

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The decision to bring the Prince home was made by Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, Chief of the Defence Staff....

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I had to put that last sentence in for the unusual name of the Air Chief Marshall. You would have thought he would have opted for the cavalry or lancers.

You can tell how much Harry's service embarrassed al Qaeda and the Taliban by their rabid reaction. Good for Harry. I hope the Brits celebrate his service for the courage it took.

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