Afghan Biographies

Karimi, Barna


Name Karimi, Barna
Ethnic backgr. Hazara
Date of birth 1974
Function/Grade Capitalize LLC, Washington D.C.
History and Biodata

2. Previous Functions of Barna Karimi:
President of ALMA USA ENTERPRISE INC. (Los Angeles, CA) and General Manager in Triton Inc. (1997)

Sales and Marketing Manager, Guess Athletic, San Diego, CA (1999)
President, ALMA USA Enterprises, Los Angeles, CA (2000)
Deputy Chief of Staff to the Office of President Hamid Karzai (2005)
Deputy Director IDLG (20080304)
Caretaker IDLG Head (20100000 - 20110500)
Ambassador to Canada (20111012 -2013)
Capitalize LLC, Washington D.C. (20130807)

3. Biodata:
karimi_barnaBarna Karimi was born Oct. 13, 1974 in Kabul, Afghanistan. He went to Istiqlal High School in Kabul and in 1991 succeeded to enter in Kabul’s prestigious Medical School, where he studied general medicine until the summer of 1992 when the university was shut down due to the outbreak of factional fighting in the country. Karimi resumed his studies in University of Phoenix, from 1997 till 2003, studying Business Marketing for bachelor and Business Administration for master in the same University. He received his bachelor's in business marketing and master's in business administration. He was a Los Angeles rug store owner who fled Afghanistan 1994 and spent 17 years in California before returning to work for the President, Hamid Karzai. He speaks the language of US business schools: "We are constantly evaluating the performance of our governors." He is a social engineer, parachuted into Afghanistan from an unimaginably alien culture, one finds it impossible to believe that Afghans relate to him as one of themselves.

The Afghan Senate summoned the caretaker head of the Independent Department of Local Governance (IDLG), Barna Karimi, on 20110524.· Provincial and district governors are appointed not based on merit but on political affiliations, senators accused the IDLG. Many district governors are illiterate, they added.
Barna Karimi has been nominated as Afghan ambassador to Canada by President Hamid Karzai through a presidential decree, an official said on 20111012.
Barna Karimi was working for Washington-based Capitalize LLC, a firm run by Said T. Jawad, the former Afghan ambassador to the United States. (2013ß807)

Karimi has been nominated by Ashraf Ghani as Telecommunication and Information Technology Minister. (20150112)

Afghans on social media websites and in a number of news websites have said that Barna Karimi has never attended college. According to Karimi’s bio published on Afghanistan's Embassy in Ottawa, he studied at the University of Phoenix from 1997 to 2003 in which he eventually received his bachelor's in business marketing and master's in business administration. The University of Phoenix offers only online degrees. A number of contacts that have been made with the University of Phoenix to find out whether Barna has received degrees from this school or not, the answers were negative. The question is now, where did Barna make his degrees?

One more problem perhaps will be his two different birthdays. On his Afghan ID, Karimi was born on October 13, 1974, but his birthday in the United States, according to a criminal searching background website, is June 13, 1973.


According to Afghan Civil Journalism website, Barna has also a criminal record in the United States. The website purports that Barna has spent one year in prison because of abusing his ex-wife. The author claims that Barna has not yet been able to see his daughter who lives with her mother because the court has banned him from seeing his ex-wife. This has also has caused him not to able to get his U.S. citizenship, according to author.

If the Afghan Parliament seriously looks for evidences, it should ask Barna to provide higher education documents. Precisely, the MPs should ask him to present four-year undergraduate transcript and two-year graduate transcript. They should also ask Barna to provide his transcript from high school in Kabul to make sure whether he has finished his high school.(20150121) Wolesi Jirga rejected Nominee for the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology Barna Karimi rejected with 97 votes, 115 in favor, 26 blank, and five invalid.(20150128)

In his second marriage Karimi married into the family of Hanif Atmar who now works as an advisor to the Afghan Security Council.

Karimi speaks English, Dari, Pashto and Czech.

Last Modified 2015-01-28
Established 2011-03-28