Prince Harry fights the Taliban - until foreign media blow his cover

The news finally broke today that Prince Harry, third in line to the throne, has been secretly fighting with the British Army on the frontline in Helmand province, Afghanistan. The prince, a lieutenant in the Blues and Royals regiment, has been serving for ten weeks alongside members of the Gurkha Rifles, sometimes only a few hundred yards from Taliban positions.

The fact that Harry was in Afghanistan was known only to a handful of journalists, editors and broadcasting executives, as well as a small team inside the Ministry of Defence. The journalists had agreed to abide by a news blackout and in return were allowed to visit and film the prince on the frontline in January, on condition that they observed an embargo until his scheduled return in April.

But after only ten weeks of his planned four-month tour, the Australian magazine New Idea and the German magazine Bild broke the news, and the Drudge Report repeated it online.

The head of the Army, General Richard Dannatt, expressed his disappointment today. It is almost certain that the prince will now cut short his tour immediately and return home. The risk to his fellow officers and men will be considered too great now that the enemy knows where the prince is.

After the Ministry of Defence was forced to admit this afternoon to Harry's tour of duty, journalists who visited him last month in Helmand are now discussing what they found - evidently, a contented 23-year-old who was finally able to fight alongside his men, having been refused permission to serve in Iraq last year.

Harry has been working as a Forward Air Controller, responsible for identifying targets and calling in air power. Asked how his grandmother, the Queen, had reacted to his news, he explained: "She actually told me... She told me I was on my way to Afghanistan."

Robert Fox, The First Post's defence correspondent, said today that the arrangement between the press and the MoD was highly unusual, "because it is well known that a British general in Iraq refused to take the prince last year because he was not interested in what he called celebrity warfare."

Harry told reporters that if he had not been able to serve this time, he would have seriously questioned whether it was worth staying in the army. He told one journalist how much he was enjoying serving with his men, and that "I hope to be here a lot longer." That was not to be.