Harry may return to action in Afghanistan

Jun 17, 2011 |

Age Correspondent

London

Prince Harry, who served in Afghanistan in between December 2007 and March 2008 on a 10-week stint, has reportedly been cleared to return to action in the war-torn nation, reports in the British media claimed on Thursday.
During his first stint in Afghanistan, Harry became the first member of the British royal family to see active service in a war zone since his uncle, Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, flew helicopters in the Falklands War 26 years ago.
The 26-year-old prince, the third in line to the British throne, recently qualified as an Apache helicopter pilot. Harry, who is an officer with the Household Cavalry Regiment, started training as an Army Air Corps helicopter pilot in January 2009.
“Assuming Harry is successful, the preliminary decision for him to return to frontline duties is now a go,” the Sun said in its report and added that Queen Elizabeth II and defence chiefs have given the go-ahead for Harry’s deployment.
“Harry is an Army pilot and will deploy wherever the Army chooses to send him. His course finishes in 2012 and after that his deployment will be a matter for the Army chain of command,” Clarence House said, without confirming the possible Afghanistan deployment plans.
However, the defence ministry did not comment on the reports about Prince Harry’s deployment in Afghanistan. “We cannot comment on the deployment of individual service personnel,” the MoD said.
Harry had been secretly deployed on combat duty with armoured Blues and Royals regiment of Household Cavalry in Helmand province of Afghanistan, but had to return in an emergency extraction after a media blackout on his deployment was broken by foreign news websites in march 2008.
At the time of Harry’s emergency extraction, the then Chief of Defence Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, had refused to comment on the prince’s chances of going on future operations.
Harry is currently training at RAF Wattisham in Suffolk and will finish the training in seven months after which he will be assigned to a squadron.

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