Prince Harry has returned to Afghanistan to fly attack helicopters in the fight against the Taliban.

The royal, who spent ten weeks on the front line in 2007/08, is on a four-month deployment and will be in the hotseat of the fearsome Apache.

The 27-year-old arrived in the war-torn country in the early hours of Thursday morning under the cover of darkness, and spent his first morning checking over the state-of-the-art Army aircraft.

The Queen and Prince of Wales were both fully briefed about his return to operations and Charles is "immensely proud of his son".

Harry has made no secret of his desire to return to active service, and has spent the past three years changing the direction of his military career from an armoured reconnaissance troop leader to an Army helicopter pilot in order to be posted back to Afghanistan.

A St James's Palace spokesman said: "He's approached the deployment with a range of emotions like any other soldier and feels both pride and anticipation as he deploys for a job he's trained for, for so long.

"Prince Harry, like any soldier, considers it a great honour to represent his country in Her Majesty's armed forces wherever it chooses to deploy him."

Harry can now put his naked Las Vegas romp behind him, and his antics can be seen as letting off steam ahead of a taxing deployment.

The third in line to the throne will now be knuckling down to the serious business of fighting the Taliban after reportedly getting a dressing-down by a senior officer for his well-publicised nude frolic.

Harry was greeted in Afghanistan by commanding officer Captain Jock Gordon (Royal Navy).

He said: "I extend an extremely warm welcome to 662 Squadron, including Captain Wales, who with his previous experience as a forward air controller on operations will be a useful asset to the Joint Aviation Group.

"And working together with his colleagues in the squadron, he will be in a difficult and demanding job, and I ask that he be left to get on with his duties and allowed to focus on delivering support to the coalition troops on the ground."