Khatool Mohammadzai
Khatool Mohammadzai is an Afghan brigadier general who serves in the Afghan National Army. She was the first Afghan woman to serve as a paratrooper, and has logged over 600 jumps in her career.[1]
Mohammadzai was born in Kabul in 1966, and joined the Army as a paratrooper in 1983 after she graduated from high school.[1] She made her first jump the following year, and served as an instructor during the Soviet–Afghan War, one of seventeen female paratroopers in the force.[1][2] She married in 1990 and had one son before her husband, a soldier, was killed in 1991.[1] fter the collapse of the government in 1992, she served in the subsequent Mujahadeen government during the civil war in the early 1990s.[1] After the Taliban took control of the country, she was forced to remain indoors, surviving on odd jobs and running a secret school for girls.[1]
Following the fall of the Taliban in 2001, she joined Afghanistan's newly formed military, and was promoted to the rank of general by President Hamid Karzai.[2] In addition to serving to serving as a paratrooper, she was made deputy director for women’s affairs in the Ministry of Defense.[2] However, as a result of what some observers, such as Amnesty International, say is institutionalized gender discrimination in Afghanistan's leadership, she has not been allowed to jump since 2006, instead serving at Ministry of Defense headquarters.[1] By 2012, she had been promoted to director of women's affairs in the National Army, and deputy director of planning and physical training for a planned disaster preparation force, and was the highest ranking female officer in the Afghan military.[1][3]
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h "Afghanistan: The Trials of Woman Paratrooper Khatool Mohammadzai". Newsweek. November 28, 2011. Retrieved December 22, 2016.
- ^ a b c "Afghan woman general jumps into men's world". Dawn. December 31, 2002. Retrieved December 22, 2016.
- ^ "CECOM analyst meets first female Afghan general". US Army. April 26, 2012. Retrieved December 22, 2012.