10 Weeks in, Word is Out on Harry’s Afghan Tour

The secret is out: Prince Harry has been serving on the front line with his British army unit in one of Afghanistan’s most lawless and barren provinces.

Harry is the first royal to serve in a combat zone since his uncle Prince Andrew flew helicopters during Britain’s war with Argentina over the Falkland Islands in 1982.

British officials had hoped to keep the 23-year-old’s deployment secret until he had returned, but they released video of Harry serving in Helmand province after a leak appeared on the U.S. Web site the Drudge Report.

The planned deployment had been disclosed to reporters, with no specific date, but was not reported previously, under an agreement between the Ministry of Defense and all major news organizations operating in Britain, including The Associated Press.

"I got here on Christmas Eve," Harry said in one video. "Nothing was happening for the first few days that I was here, but things are picking up again now."

Military chiefs are angry over the leak and are considering whether he should be moved. Tours to Afghanistan usually last six months, but Harry has served just 10 weeks.

Harry, the third in line to the British throne, was supposed to go to Iraq with the Blues and Royals regiment in May, but the assignment was scrapped at the last minute because of security fears.

After being held back from Iraq, the prince threatened to quit the army if he wasn’t given the chance to see combat.

He said the news of his Afghan assignment was delivered by his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth II.

"She told me I’m off to Afghanistan, so that was the way it was supposed to be," he said in an interview in Afghanistan, his hair coated with dust and his face in stubble.

Harry has been in Helmand province, where most of the 7,800 British soldiers in Afghanistan are based. It has seen some of the country’s fiercest combat in recent years.

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