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Emergency plans to extract Prince Harry from Afghanistan are being drawn up today after the news leaked that he had been on a secret combat tour in Helmand province since before Christmas (writes Michael Evans, Defence Editor, and Philippe Naughton).

After being denied the chance to serve with his unit in Iraq, the third in line to the throne was deployed in Afghanistan in mid-December. He has been working in Helmand province as a Forward Air Controller – responsible for providing cover for frontline troops – and has been personally involved in clashes with Taleban guerrillas.

His four-month deployment had been kept secret because of a Ministry of Defence agreement with news organisations, including The Times, but the details can now be made public after the news leaked out overseas and on the internet.

One Australian news magazine, New Idea, reported Harry's deployment a month ago, but it was not until it was carried yesterday on the Drudge Report, a major American website, that the news embargo was lifted.

The leak means the full details of Prince Harry’s mission in Helmand province can now be revealed.

— He was involved in a frontline fire-fight with the Taleban fighting alongside Gurkha troops just 500 metres from enemy positions.

— He expressed his fear that he could be a “bullet magnet” for the enemy and that extremists would be “trying to slot me” on his return to England.

— On New Year’s Eve, working as a battlefield air controller known only to pilots as “Widow Six Seven”, he called fighter bomber strikes on Taleban positions.

— He was first told that he was going to Afghanistan by the Queen, his grandmother, and said that he would have had to “bow out” of the Army if he had not been allowed to go.

Defence officials confirmed this evening that Harry, 23, a lieutenant in the Blues and Royals, was still in Afghanistan. They released a range of photographs of the Prince on the first combat deployment of a royal since his uncle, Prince Andrew, served as a helicopter pilot in the Falklands in 1982.

"His conduct on operations in Afghanistan has been exemplary," General Sir Richard Dannatt, Chief of the General Staff, said. "He has been fully involved in operations and has run the same risks as everyone else in his battle group."

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