At midnight on July 17, 2020, Afghan teenager Kamal Gul shot and killed two Taliban militants in a remote village in Ghor Province in central Afghanistan, after their parents were also shot dead.
Biography and Family
Kamal Gul was born in 2005 (15 years old in 2020) in a remote village in the Tawara District of Afghanistan. She grew up in her home on the hillsides of western Afghanistan, living with her parents Fatima (mother), Shah Gul Rahimi (father), and her 12-year-old brother Habibullah. Her mother was married twice before marrying Kamal Gul’s father, Shah Gul Rahimi. Her mother’s first husband was an Iranian laborer who died young from a drug overdose. Fatima’s second husband was a local commander who was killed in the conflict with the Taliban in the 1990s. After the commander was killed, his younger brother Shah Gul Rahimi assumed the responsibility of his brother’s home and married his brother’s widow Fatima. Fatima and Shah Gul Rahimi have two children, Kamal Gul and her 12-year-old brother Habibullah. Kamal Gul has a half-brother from her mother’s ex-wife, who is now an Afghan police officer.
The Taiwara region in western Afghanistan is the hometown of Kamal Gul, an Afghan teenager who killed two Taliban militants
Taliban attacks
Kamal Gul and her 12-year-old brother were asleep in their room after midnight on July 17, 2020, when her hillside home in a remote village in Gul, a central province in western Afghanistan, was attacked by Taliban militants. The militants surrounded the hillside home and broke in. When her father, Shah Gul Rahimi, came out of the hallway to check what was happening, he was shot dead on the spot with six gunshot wounds. When her mother, Fatima, rushed to seek help after her husband was killed, she was also shot dead by the militants with three bullets in her body, two in the chest and one in the neck.
Afghan girl holding AK-47
After her parents were killed by militants at midnight on July 17, 2020, Kamal Gul grabbed her father’s AK-47, rushed to the door, and began to shoot indiscriminately at the militants. She shot and killed two militants and wounded a senior Taliban commander. Recalling the incident, Gul said:
They took my parents outside and shot them multiple times. I was terrified. I grabbed the gun we had at home and walked to the door and shot them.”
According to Kamal Gul, when the wounded senior Taliban commander tried to fight back, her 12-year-old brother Habibullah rushed forward and hit him. Later, when neighbors arrived at the scene, the militants fled the scene. Speaking of this, Gul said:
My brother took the gun from me and hit him (shot him). The soldier was wounded and fled, but later came back.”
Kamal Gul and his 12-year-old brother Habibullah
According to Kamal Gul, she learnt how to shoot an AK-47 assault rifle from her father, Shah Gul Rahimi.
Afghan women heroes
After Kamal Gul’s heroic battle against the Taliban militants, Afghan social media celebrated her with beautiful posters reading “My Hero”. Gul was also compared to the Kurdish women of Kobani, Syria, who have been engaged in a long battle against the Islamic State. Local officials in Gul’s hometown released photos of Kamal Gul holding an AK-47 assault rifle. Afghan Vice President Amrullah Saleh also praised Kamal Gul’s actions against “enemies of the state”. Two days after the attack, the governor of Ghor province issued a statement praising Kamal Gul and her brother for their heroic actions against the Taliban; the statement reads:
Kamal Gul and her 12-year-old brother thwarted an “attack” by the “Taliban terrorist group” and forced the “bloodthirsty Taliban to flee, leaving two dead on the battlefield.”
Family disputes
According to the New York Times, the attack on Kamal Gul’s home was related to a family dispute, and one of the attackers was named Mohammad Naim, Kamal Gul’s husband. The family dispute stemmed from the friendship between Gul’s father Shah Gul Rahimi and Mohammad Naim. Later, Shah Gul Rahimi married his daughter (Kamal Gul) to Mohammad Naim as his second wife, and in exchange, he married Naim’s teenage niece as his second wife. Later, Shah Gul Rahimi became a guarantor for Naim, who needed a loan of about $3,000. Later, Mohammad Naim was heavily in debt and joined the Taliban, and his private life became turbulent, and the specific reasons are still unclear. According to villagers, Mohammad Naim’s first wife was dissatisfied with her husband’s excessive attention to his second wife Kamal Gul, and the two often quarreled about it. After a quarrel, Mohammad Naim and Kamal Gul left home. The quarrel was reportedly caused by Shah Gul Rahimi’s second wife (Mr. Naim’s teenage niece) refusing to return to her husband’s house after returning home because she did not want to live with her husband as he was much older than her. Later, when Kamal Gul arrived at her house, her father refused to send her to her husband’s house until the second wife returned to him and Mr. Naim paid off the $3,000 debt, which tormented him. However, Mohammad Naim did not want to pay the debt and he conspired with a murderous Taliban commander in Ghor Province who was close to him to attack Kamal Gul’s home and decided to launch a surprise attack in the early hours after midnight on July 17, 2020.
Categories: Biography
Source: HIS Education