Karim Khan Kak Ahmad, known as (Karim Khan Gondezhori), was born in 1957 in the village of Gondezhor, Choman District, Erbil Governorate. In his childhood, he studied religious lessons under a religious cleric. In 1980, he became a refugee in Eastern Kurdistan, and in 1991, after the Uprising, he returned to Southern Kurdistan and settled in the city of Soran.
On May 2, 1972, he joined the ranks of the Kurdistan Democratic Party. Due to his literacy, in the Balak area committee, under the secret name Hiwa, he became a member of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, and the following year, under the secret name Sangar, he became a cell organizer. On October 3, he joined the National Defense Force under the command of Lieutenant Riaz in the Karim Agha Rayat Battalion, and during the outbreak of fighting in Nawprdan, he became a Peshmerga of the Military Bureau under the command of Hamadamin Rashka. In November 1974, his rank was promoted to squad leader. Later, as a clerk, he went to the distribution department in the Revolution warehouse, whose officials were Sheikh Karim Hirani, Martyr Teacher Saad Abdullah and Teacher Fatah Batasi. In September 1974, in the Khanqa Valley, he was slightly wounded by an aerial bombardment.
After the collapse of the revolution, at the age of eighteen, when his father was no longer alive and he had the responsibility of the household, he returned to his village. On January 20, 1976, he was taken for military service to the cities of Mosul and Sinjar. On November 1, 1976, he received an amnesty and returned home. While commuting for military service, through Teacher Saad Abdullah he was drawn to the Socialist Movement. In 1976, the first Peshmerga headquarters of the Provisional Command (the temporary leadership of the Kurdistan Democratic Party), commanded by Mullah Shemhamad, was established inside the Gondezhor school. On November 16, 1976, they were attacked by the Ba'athists, during which several people were martyred, wounded, and captured. He also participated in that battle.
In the summer of 1977, the Iraq regime burned their village and displaced its people. At that time, within the secret organizations, in the village of Khelan and the city of Choman, especially within the Agriculture Directorate, he was doing party organizational work. In the city's organizational work, he became the head of Sector No. 6 of Darband in the Barzin area committee in the Balak region, and later he joined the secret organizations of the city of Erbil. After the secret organizational work, in 1980, in the Balak region, he joined the Peshmerga forces of the Socialist Party, and his family became refugees in Iran.
In the mountains, in addition to his Peshmerga duties, where he was a detachment commander, sector commander, and deputy regional commander, and participated in several defensive battles, he was also an administrator of the organization affiliated with the Political Bureau and the head of the Peshmerga recruitment committee, and for a while, he worked in the customs department. In 1988, he was sent to the party's relations department and became the deputy of Mullah Nasih Gomasheni, the head of the Central Bureau of Relations, in the city of Saqqez, and later he was made the head of the relations department in the city of Oshnavieh. In the autumn of 1989, he became a member of the Kurdistan Socialist Party Conference in Nokan. In addition to his official responsibilities, after the Anfal and chemical attacks, in the Kurdistan Relief Association KRA and the High Committee for Refugees, he worked as a party representative in the border of Urmia province. At the same time, he supervised two refugee camp organizations in the border areas of the cities of Naghadeh, Oshnavieh, and Piranshahr.
During the Uprising, on March 8, 1991, he reached Ranya and participated in the uprising of several cities in Kurdistan. Later, in the party's organizational work in Erbil, he was made the head of the organization of Kasnazan and Topzawa, and at the same time, he was the party's representative in the Kurdistan Front. During the exodus, he remained in Soran and Choman. After 1992, he was a member of the Unification Congress and later became an administrator of the Erbil Provincial Committee and head of the Choman District Committee.
On September 5, 1993, after the unification of the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Unification Party, he was made a member of the administrative board of Branch 10 of the Kurdistan Democratic Party. During that period, one of his important roles was gathering former Socialist members and cadres within the framework of Branch 10, which had an impact on the organizational situation in that region. Also, because Branch 10 was located within the geography of the wars, he participated in defensive battles in that area along with some of his branch comrades.
In the party's internal elections, he became a branch administrator twice, in 1994 and 1999. In that capacity, he was the head of the Social Bureau, the Cultural and Media Bureau, and the Mass and Professional Organizations Bureau. After the Uprising, he was elected twice as a member of the 11th and 12th Party Congresses. During the civil war in 1994-1995, he was the supervisor of the Balak area committee, and in 1998-1999, he was the supervisor of the Khalifan area committee. In 2012, he did not nominate himself in the party's internal elections. Later, he was asked to join the Erbil Leadership Advisory Council committee, but he decided to retire.
In addition to his Peshmerga work, party work, and social duties, during the Aylul Revolution, he wrote for Kurdistan Radio. During his military days, he learned Arabic, and during his time as a refugee, he taught himself Persian. Also, in addition to several poems and literary writings, he wrote articles in the magazines and publications of the mountain era and the newspapers after the Uprising. At the time he was the head of the branch media bureau, he was also the supervisor of Soran Radio and the director of several cultural courses for cadres, such as the Uprising course, Hejar Mukriyani, September 11, August 16, Miqdad Midhat Badirkhan, etc., and he was a lecturer in some of them. Currently, the book Winter of Suffering, which, in addition to a biography, contains regional history and the narration of political events of the Aylul, Gulan, and Uprising eras, is ready for printing.
Based on this record, on August 16, 2018, on the anniversary of the founding of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, His Excellency President Masoud Barzani awarded him the Immortal Barzani Medal.
Source1- Karim Khan Gondezhori, Winter of Suffering, unpublished, 2018.
2- Karim Khan Gondezhori, interview, Encyclopedia of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, Soran: 2026. www.partipedia.org