Najmaldin Karim was elected governor of Kirkuk province in 2011 after years of service as a pioneering Kurdish activist, Peshmerga medic, and opposition leader during the Saddam Hussein era. Under his tenure, the province has drastically improved services such as electricity and water, built numerous schools and hospitals, and taken major defensive efforts to prevent terrorist infiltration. After immigrating to the United States four decades ago and completing a medical residency at George Washington University, Dr. Karim cofounded the Kurdish National Congress of North America, established the Washington Kurdish Institute, worked with the Senate and State Department to provide Kurdish-language programming on Voice of America, and made frequent appearances on major news outlets.
