Monday, April 23, 2007

Harry ‘the mother of all targets’ in Iraq


Here is some crazy conjecture that I can't help but wonder about. As soon as I saw this story, I immediately thought of this scenario:
If you read my post "Could Prince Charles Be The AntiChrist", notice the passage from Revelation 13:3 about the AntiChrist's deadly wound being healed. Why would Osama Bin Laden target Prince Harry? Notice that the article also mentions that Prince Harry is entitled to everything that Prince Charles has. Maybe we are looking at the wrong person. This is all just speculation that came to me when I read the CTD article. Just some food for thought, but I can't help making the connections.

Harry to go to Iraq
Prince Harry is trained as a troop leader to take command of four Scimitar armoured reconnaissance vehicles and will be deployed in Iraq alongside 11 men who will serve under him.
(AFP/Pool/File)

The scale of risk facing Prince Harry when he goes to Iraq is revealed in a remarkable series of exclusive interviews with insurgent leaders on both sides.

By Mark Townsend
April 23, 2007

(SUNDAY OBSERVER) — Prince Harry was left under no illusions of his value as a scalp for Iraqi insurgents. Even so, senior military officers could never have predicted the sheer scale of and nature of the threats lying in wait.

Iraqi militia groups have already hatched detailed plans to seize him as a hostage when he arrives in Iraq next month. In a remarkable series of interviews, some of the most notorious paramilitary factions in southern Iraq claim that informants placed inside British military barracks in Iraq have received orders to ‘track’ the movements of the third in line to the throne.

The claims again question the Ministry of Defence’s decision to allow Harry to serve in Iraq where he and his unit will be seen as a valuable target to those attacking US and British forces.

Last night a Ministry of Defence spokesman said: ‘We have not concealed the fact that he is going out there and the bad guys know that he’s coming and we expect that they will consider him a high-profile scalp.’ Despite the threats, Whitehall officials ruled out the possibility of the prince not being sent to Maysan, the most volatile province in southern Iraq, where attacks against British forces are mounting.

He will serve with his regiment, the Blues and Royals, for a six-month tour of duty. He is trained as a troop leader to take command of four Scimitar armoured reconnaissance vehicles and will be deployed in Iraq alongside 11 men who will serve under him.

One senior army officer who has completed three tours of duty in Basra, confirmed yesterday that Harry’s imminent arrival in Iraq was causing ‘disquiet at senior levels’ within the military. He warned that those around him, particular those under Harry’s direct command, could be at an increased risk: ‘Wherever they place him in theatre, the concern is it will attract fire towards everyone on the ground.’

He described Harry, who says he does not want to ’sit on my arse back home while my boys are out fighting for their country’, as the ‘mother of all targets’.

Militia leaders claim photographs of Harry have already been downloaded from the internet and disseminated to the main insurgent groups in the area where the prince will be deployed.

Snipers belonging to Shia militia groups have, they claim, been ordered to target the 22-year-old while Sunni insurgents say they plan to hold the prince hostage to demand the release of prisoners and immediate withdrawal of British troops.

Together the testimonies suggest that Shia and Sunni paramilitary forces, traditionally sworn enemies, have joined forces to try to capture Harry, a deeply disquieting development for British senior officers.

Although some of the testimony may be bluster, there will be clearly be a concerted campaign to try to disrupt the prince’s tour of duty.

Abu Zaid, commander of the Malik Ibn Al Ashtar Brigade of the notorious Mehdi Army militia, said: ‘We are awaiting the arrival of the young, handsome, spoilt prince with baited breath and we confidently expect he will come out into the open on the battlefield.

‘We will be generous with him. For he will return him to his grandmother [the Queen] but without ears,’ added Zaid, a senior figure within the largest and strongest Shia militia group operating where British troops are deployed. We have printed out many photographs of him from the internet and given them to all other groups.

‘They know the prince is their main objective and I have every confidence he will be targeted and attacked.’

Abu Samir, a leader of the Iranian-backed Sunni group Thar-allah - meaning God’s revenge - added: ‘Our people are ready to welcome him in their special way - like Leachman.’ This was a reference to a British officer Colonel Gerard Leachman who was murdered by Sheikh Dhari, a tribal leader, in Iraq in 1920. Dhari is still considered by many Iraqis as a hero. While news of his death shocked the British public, it is credited with inspiring Arab tribes to revolt against Western occupying forces.

Samir added it would be impossible for Harry to avoid detection once in Iraq, describing his face as more familiar to Iraqis than world-famous footballers.

‘His face is now very familiar to a lot of people - more so even than Zidane and Ronaldinho,’ said Samir, a senior figure of the Iranian-financed religious party that set up offices across southern Iraq after the invasion.

Abu, a Sunni insurgent commander and former major in the Iraqi army, said that they had insiders supplying a ‘constant’ flow of information from within UK military barracks.

He said: ‘When they [the British] first arrived in Basra, we planted our people inside the British bases and headquarters, and it is these people who are now our constant source of information.

‘They have new orders to track Prince Harry’s movements. Once we have that information we will make appropriate plans to capture him. Wherever the British army decides to keep the prince we will find him.’

Another senior Sunni militia source said: ‘Plans [to abduct] are already in place. As soon as the prince arrives, the race will be on to seize him as a trophy and then to decide his fate.’

Such comments suggest that any hopes that Harry would blend in among the 7,100 British service personnel currently stationed in Iraq already appear misplaced. Among the thousands of pictures of Harry militias claim to have distributed are thought to include images of Harry on a battle tank during training. Others feature the prince fishing in Scotland with Prince Charles and Prince William along with images of the family during their annual skiing holiday in Klosters, Switzerland.

Zaid, who commands an arm of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mehdi Army which has been responsible for attacks against British troops, said that if plans to abduct the prince failed then militias would try and assassinate the prince. He said: ‘Our sniper teams have also been issued with pictures so they will know his face long before he arrives in our land.

‘I would like to advise him [Harry] to stay at home among his friends. He should learn a serious lesson what is happening to British soldiers in Basra and I would like him to think 100 times before boarding a plane for Iraq.’

Last week two soldiers, members of the Queen’s Royal Lancers battle group, died after their Scimitar light tank was struck by a roadside bomb in Maysan province.

Ten British soldiers have died in Iraq this month, including two women, making it the worst month since the invasion. The total number of British dead is now 144. However, despite the deteriorating situation, Prince Harry will not receive extra security in Iraq. ‘He’s surrounded by a lot of heavily-armed men,’ said a Whitehall source yesterday.

Clarence House is being briefed regularly by the MoD.

One prominent member of the insurgency indicated that Harry might also be targeted by militias for religious reasons. Abu Ahmed, another commander within the Mehdi Army, said: ‘He should follow his mother, Diana, and rebel against the imperialistic family and not come here as a crusader, or his blood will flow into our desert.’

Although MoD officials will not comment on specific intelligence relating to threats against the prince, a spokesman confirmed that they were ‘monitoring security considerations on the ground’.

Experts believe the international media coverage towards Iran’s capture of the 15 British soldiers and Marines from the Shatt al Arab waterway in March will have underlined the value of taking Harry hostage. One Iraqi said that, if captured, the prince would be used as a bargaining chip to trade for captured Sunni insurgents and to call for the removal of British forces.

He said: ‘I hope we succeed so that we can negotiate the release of our brothers and sisters who are in prison as well as the departure of British troops.’

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

If we let prince Harry into Iraq we may aswell throw him into a cage full of starved tigers!!
If anything was to happen to him Iraq could really destroy Britain more by doing this than anything else (as apparently we dont seem to care too much about the destruction of ordinary people we send out there everyday!)
Any reason for another war, right!?