Khushnood Nabizada
Khushnood Nabizada is an Afghan journalist and entrepreneur. He is the founder and owner of Khaama Press, an online news agency based in Afghanistan.
Early life
Nabizada was born on March 27, 1987, in Shibar District of Bamyan Province in central Afghanistan. He is an ethnic Hazara and belongs to the Shia Muslim community.Around age eight, his family moved to Puli Khumri in Baghlan Province. During his fifth grade, Nabizada and his family fled to Rawalpindi, Pakistan, due to Taliban rule in Afghanistan. He returned to Afghanistan in 2003 during the presidency of Hamid Karzai.
Education
Nabizada graduated from Habibia High School in Kabul in 2006. He obtained a bachelor's degree in business administration from Kardan University in 2012. He later earned a master's degree in Global Affairs and Management from the Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University.Career
Khaama Press
In October 2010, Nabizada founded Khaama Press in Kabul. The news agency publishes content in English, Persian, and Pashto. According to Afghanistan's Access to Information Commission, Khaama Press was the most visited news website in Afghanistan in 2020.Other work
From 2007 to early 2014, Nabizada worked as a senior business executive at the Insurance Corporation of Afghanistan.In 2011, he founded ZubLink, a web design and digital marketing company originally established in Kabul as Barg Sabz Web Designing. The company later relocated to the United States.
In 2016, Nabizada was appointed chief of staff to Afghanistan's Ministry of Urban Development and Housing under President Ashraf Ghani. In 2020, he became chief of staff to the State Ministry for Peace under Minister Sadat Mansoor Naderi.
Assassination attempt
On February 1, 2021, Nabizada survived a roadside bomb attack in Kabul's 10th police district while traveling to work. The U.S. Embassy in Kabul condemned the attack.Resettlement in the United States
In August 2021, during Operation Allies Refuge, Nabizada and his family evacuated from Afghanistan to the United States. They initially spent nearly five months at Fort McCoy in Wisconsin before being resettled in Richmond, Virginia, in December 2021.In his account published by the Richmond Times-Dispatch in January 2022, Nabizada wrote: "Emigration has never been my fantasy, but a compulsion to escape death." In July 2022, he spoke about his experiences at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.