First female Afghan air force pilot requests US asylum

Citing Taliban threats, Niloofar Rahmani says it is unsafe for her to return to Afghanistan after finishing flight course

By AFP 27 December 2016, 5:46 pm

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This file photograph taken on April 26, 2015, shows Afghanistan's first female pilot Niloofar Rahmani as she poses at an airfield in Kabul. (AFP Photo/Shah Marai)

Afghanistan’s first female air force pilot has requested asylum in the United States due to threats on her life made by the Taliban.

Niloofar Rahmani, 25, became a symbol of hope for millions of Afghan women when she surfaced in the press in 2013 after becoming Afghanistan’s first woman pilot since the Taliban era, dressed in tan combat boots, khaki overalls and aviator glasses.

She had been lionized as the “Afghan Top Gun” after the 1986 Tom Cruise film on flying aces, and was scheduled to return to Afghanistan last week after a 15-month training course with the US Air Force.

But on the eve of her departure, she declared she will not be returning and instead will request US asylum, citing death threats from the Taliban and contempt from her male colleagues in a conservative nation where many still believe that a woman does not belong outside the home.

Rahmani’s lawyer Kimberly Motley said her decision to seek asylum in the US had been a “heartbreakingly difficult decision.”

“Niloofar and her family have received vicious threats which have unfortunately confirmed that her safety is at significant risk if she were to come back to Afghanistan,” Motley told AFP.

“The real betrayal to Afghanistan is against those who threaten her life, her family’s life, and also to those who continue to oppress women.”

This file photograph taken on April 26, 2015, shows Afghanistan's first female pilot Niloofar Rahmani as she sits in a fixed-wing Afghan Air Force aviator aircraft at an airfield in Kabul. (AFP Photo/Shah Marai) — This file photograph taken on April 26, 2015, shows Afghanistan’s first female pilot Niloofar Rahmani as she sits in a fixed-wing Afghan Air Force aviator aircraft at an airfield in Kabul. (AFP Photo/Shah Marai)

General Mohammad Radmanish, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s defense ministry, denied that Rahmani was in danger.

“I am sure she lied by saying she was threatened, just to win the asylum case,” Radmanish was quoted as saying on Sunday by The New York Times. “It is baseless that she claimed her life was at risk while serving in the Afghan Air Force.”

“Since Captain Rahmani’s claim is new, we expect her to change her mind and return to her own country and continue serving as a pilot,” he added.

Radmanish called on the US to deny asylum, saying “we request from our American friends and government to reject her asylum case and send her back, because knowing the truth, Captain Rahmani’s life isn’t at risk at all.”

Her application for asylum is currently under consideration.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report