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Escape of a lifetime: A former female army officer flees the Taliban
Gholam-Hossein Elham authored this report for the Zan Times in Persian, and it was translated into English by Rustam Seerat.
Mahbooba Mohammadi’s escape from the Taliban was so epic that it evokes the “Seven Trials of Rostam.” Originally from Mazar-e-Sharif, she was 20 years old when she joined the army in the spring of 2016. Lacking connections or sponsors to help advance her career, she ended up in the active reserve section and later, the army’s recruitment division, serving in Mazar-e-Sharif and Kabul. While in the military, Mohammadi became the caretaker of her family of seven as her father’s mental challenges meant he could not fulfill that role.
Though some of her male colleagues deserted or abandoned their posts as the government collapsed ahead of the Taliban’s takeover, she kept working. “Until the last moments of the government’s fall in mid-August 2021, I did not take off my military uniform,” she recounts. By then, her rank was as a lieutenant though she worked as a captain.
Like most in Afghanistan, Mohammadi was completely caught off guard by the government’s fall, which upended her life.
