The Australian :
As the first woman aeroplane pilot in Afghanistan, Niloofar Rahmani, became a powerful symbol of what women could accomplish in the post-Taliban era.
Now, more than three years after she earned her wings, the 25-year-old air force pilot hopes to start a new life in the US where
she has applied for asylum, saying her life would be in danger if she returned home.
Captain Rahmani went to the US in 2015 to train on C-130 Hercules transports with the US Air Force. The course ended on Friday, and under the terms of her training stint, she was due to go back to Afghanistan today. She won’t be going.
“I would love to fly for my country – that is what I always wanted to do,” she said from Little Rock air force base in Arkansas. “But I’m scared for my life.”
Captain Rahmani is the highest-profile member of Afghanistan’s armed forces seeking asylum in the US or Canada. Three Afghan soldiers were detained after fleeing a training exercise in Massachusetts in 2014 and heading for Canada. One was granted asylum and another immigrated to Canada. The third soldier was denied asylum and is appealing the decision.
Afghanistan air force head Abdul Wahab Wardak has warned pilots training in the US against applying for asylum, saying they would be deported home and arrested.
Asked about Captain Rahmani’s decision to seek asylum, air force spokesman Jalaluddin Ibrahimkhel reiterated that pilots must return home after completing training abroad.
If she is granted asylum in America, Captain Rahmani says she will continue flying, either with the USAF or as a commercial pilot. “Everything I went through, all my suffering, was because I really wanted to fly. That was my dream,” she said.
Captain Rahmani came of age in Kabul after the US-led invasion toppled the Taliban in 2001, ushering in an era that promised unprecedented opportunities and freedoms for women in a country where few work outside their homes.
The US and its allies spent millions in a bid to help narrow the gender gap by promoting women’s education and employment, including in the military. The decision by Captain Rahmani to seek asylum is emblematic of the limitations of those efforts, which drew the ire of extremists.
Despite those obstacles, Captain Rahmani in 2013 became the first woman to graduate from the pilot-training program run by the US-led military coalition and became a public figure, even a celebrity, in Afghanistan.
But she soon received threatening phone calls and a written death threat from the same branch of the Pakistani Taliban that shot and wounded the schoolgirl and Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai.
The biggest danger, however, came from distant relatives, who believed her career choice had brought dishonour to the family. They wanted her punished and repeatedly tried to track her down from Afghanistan.
As the first woman aeroplane pilot in Afghanistan, Niloofar Rahmani, became a powerful symbol of what women could accomplish in the post-Taliban era.
Now, more than three years after she earned her wings, the 25-year-old air force pilot hopes to start a new life in the US where
she has applied for asylum, saying her life would be in danger if she returned home.
Captain Rahmani went to the US in 2015 to train on C-130 Hercules transports with the US Air Force. The course ended on Friday, and under the terms of her training stint, she was due to go back to Afghanistan today. She won’t be going.
“I would love to fly for my country – that is what I always wanted to do,” she said from Little Rock air force base in Arkansas. “But I’m scared for my life.”
Captain Rahmani is the highest-profile member of Afghanistan’s armed forces seeking asylum in the US or Canada. Three Afghan soldiers were detained after fleeing a training exercise in Massachusetts in 2014 and heading for Canada. One was granted asylum and another immigrated to Canada. The third soldier was denied asylum and is appealing the decision.
Afghanistan air force head Abdul Wahab Wardak has warned pilots training in the US against applying for asylum, saying they would be deported home and arrested.
Asked about Captain Rahmani’s decision to seek asylum, air force spokesman Jalaluddin Ibrahimkhel reiterated that pilots must return home after completing training abroad.
If she is granted asylum in America, Captain Rahmani says she will continue flying, either with the USAF or as a commercial pilot. “Everything I went through, all my suffering, was because I really wanted to fly. That was my dream,” she said.
Captain Rahmani came of age in Kabul after the US-led invasion toppled the Taliban in 2001, ushering in an era that promised unprecedented opportunities and freedoms for women in a country where few work outside their homes.
The US and its allies spent millions in a bid to help narrow the gender gap by promoting women’s education and employment, including in the military. The decision by Captain Rahmani to seek asylum is emblematic of the limitations of those efforts, which drew the ire of extremists.
Despite those obstacles, Captain Rahmani in 2013 became the first woman to graduate from the pilot-training program run by the US-led military coalition and became a public figure, even a celebrity, in Afghanistan.
But she soon received threatening phone calls and a written death threat from the same branch of the Pakistani Taliban that shot and wounded the schoolgirl and Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai.
The biggest danger, however, came from distant relatives, who believed her career choice had brought dishonour to the family. They wanted her punished and repeatedly tried to track her down from Afghanistan.
