Insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles stormed heavily-fortified Camp Bastion, the British HQ in Helmand, in a deadly assault on the ‘aviation area’.
The 27-year-old Royal arrived on the frontline last week to fly Apache attack helicopters - which have the highest ‘kill rate’ in the war - in the battle against the enemy.
Prince Harry is posted at Camp Bastion where the
attack took place tonight. He is pictured here examining an Apache
helicopter last week
Prince Harry climbs up to examine the cockpit of
an Apache helicopter with a member of his squadron at Camp Bastion near
to where today's attack happened
But he added: ‘Prince Harry was in no danger. He wasn’t close to the attack.’
Buckingham Palace refused to say whether Harry was present at the time.
Camp Bastion and its neighbouring U.S. base Camp Leatherneck came under rocket and mortar attack before Afghan rebels broke through the perimeter.
The attack comes just days after the Taliban announced it was launching 'Harry Operations' aimed at killing or wounding the prince.
ISAF, the international force responsible for the Afghan war, is set to investigate whether militants were specifically targeting Harry when they launched their assault on Bastion.
New home: Harry has been posted to Camp Bastion, pictured, the base which came under Taliban attack
Pilot: Harry is trained to fly Apache helicopters, some of the most deadly aircraft in Afghanistan
British diplomats were in fear for their lives, with staff at the embassy in Khartoum, Sudan, locking themselves in as 5,000 angry demonstrators raged and lit fires in an attack on the German embassy next door.
In London, 150 protesters marched on the U.S. embassy chanting ‘burn burn USA’ as the American flag went up in flames, soon joined by the Israeli flag.
There was a call for sharia law to be imposed over Britain. Police made two arrests.
The attack on Camp Bastion is also embarrassing for Britain's Defence Secretary Philip Hammond, who only yesterday raised the prospect on speeding up the withdrawal of British troops from the warzone as he claimed on a visit to Afghanistan that the security situation was improving.
A Pentagon spokesman confirmed that the attack was on Bastion’s ‘aviation area’.
Officials in Afghanistan said it is too early to know if this attack was motivated by the anti-Islamic YouTube movie that recently went viral on the Internet.
But the presence of Captain Harry Wales – as he is known in the Army – in Afghanistan was feared to have alerted the Taliban who were expected to step up efforts to kill or injure the young officer to land a huge propaganda coup.
Base: Camp Bastion is the British headquarters in Helmand province (file photo)
Assault: The attack on the base, pictured, was described as 'sustained' and 'complex' by U.S. officials
Major Martyn Crighton, a spokesman at International Security Assistance Force’s Joint Command, said there were at least two fatalities and a number of wounded in the assault was on the north-east side of the base in Helmand Province.
The base took indirect and small arms fire, causing major damage to buildings, an aircraft hangar and several military jets.
After Harry arrived at the base last week, a Taliban spokesman vowed to kill or kidnap him ‘using all our strength’.
Zabihullah Mujahid threatened: ‘We have informed our commanders in Helmand to do whatever they can to eliminate him.’
Camp Bastion is a huge base in the middle of the desert shared by British, American, Estonian, Danish and Afghan troops.
It is the logistics hub for operations in Helmand, with supply convoys and armoured patrols regularly leaving its heavily-defended gates, to support the military forward operating bases, patrol bases and checkpoints spread across Helmand province.
Protest: Demonstrators in Gaza express their fury over an anti-Muslim film released on YouTube
Siege: Sudanese demonstrators push a burning car into the wall of the U.S. embassy in Khartoum
He is known as Captain Wales to his colleagues and is part of the 100-strong 662 Squadron, 3 Regiment Army Air Corps.
He serves as a co-pilot gunner with the Apache unit, which has the highest ‘kill rate’ in the war.
Harry, who is third in line to the throne, took up his new role two weeks after he was pictured naked in Las Vegas frolicking with girls.
He first served in Afghanistan in 2008 as an on-ground air controller, but he was forced to cut the tour short when the news blackout, which was protecting his position on the front line, was breached.
In the demonstrations in London, the rabble-rousers included the notorious hate preacher Anjem Choudary.
It came as riots and demonstrations spread halfway around the globe, from Morocco in the west to Bangladesh in the east. American embassies and symbols were the primary targets for fury.
The wave of hate has been sparked by an obscure film called Innocence of Muslims, which was produced in America and has been criticised for ridiculing Islam and depicting the Prophet Mohammed as a fraud, a womaniser and a madman. The film was apparently made by a Coptic Christian living in California.
Since clips were shown on Arab television it has provoked ever-growing outrage, including the murder in Libya on Tuesday of the US ambassador.
But Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has made clear that ‘the United States government had absolutely nothing to do’ with the video.
Britain: Protesters marched and burned American flags outside the U.S. embassy in London
Guard: The Pope's trip to Lebanon was hit by security fears in the wake of the protests
The German embassy is believed to have attracted particular ire because Sudan’s foreign ministry had criticised the country for allowing a protest last month by right-wing activists carrying caricatures of the Prophet.
In violence elsewhere, the number of dead and wounded grew. In the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli police began shooting, killing one man, after a mob set fire to a Kentucky Fried Chicken franchise and an American restaurant. Another 25 were wounded in the chaos.
And there was anxiety for the safety of Pope Benedict, who had arrived in the Lebanese capital Beirut yesterday for a three-day visit. In Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, 2,000 protesters set off for the US embassy, only to be stopped short by security forces firing live rounds, killing one man and leaving 15 injured.
In the Tunisian capital Tunis, three were killed and 28 wounded after police fought hundreds of protesters who ransacked the US embassy.
The largest protests were in the Gaza Strip. At least 30,000 Palestinians held rallies, 25,000 of whom took to the streets of Gaza City. US and Israeli flags were set alight, as was an effigy of the film’s producer.
In Cairo, Egypt, a protestor was killed in clashes with police near the U.S embassy.
The Muslim half of Jerusalem witnessed a mob of 400 marching towards the US consulate hurling bottles, but they were repelled by police.
In Damascus, Syria, a 200-strong crowd demonstrated outside the US embassy – although it was abandoned in February because of the country’s bloody civil war.
In Tehran, Iran, in Baghdad, Iraq, in Jalalabad in Afghanistan, in Istanbul in Turkey, in Bangladesh, in cities across Pakistan, and in Bahrain, protesting crowds limited their anger to chanting and burning US and Israeli flags.
President Barack Obama yesterday honoured the four Americans killed in an attack on the US consulate in Libya as their bodies were returned to the US.
He said that the United States would never pull back on its principles or ‘retreat from the world’.
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