Background
Mustafa was born in Arbil, Iraq, in the Kurdistan region, to a Kurdish family and spent two years of her childhood in a refugee camp. Her father was a Kurdish political activist and an opponent of the regime of Saddam Hussein.
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Herro Mustafa
Edit ProfileEducation
Mustafa graduated from Minot High School in 1991 and earned her undergraduate degree from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in 1995 where she studied national security and the Middle East.
Career
Mustafa"s family story was the subject of the documentary film American Herro. She is multilingual and speaks English, Kurdish, Arabic, Turkish, Spanish and Greek. Her family sought asylum in the United States in 1976.
She also received a master"s degree in international relations from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.
After graduation, she directed a non-governmental organization for Kurdish studies in the United States., traveled to Bosnia to supervise provincial elections and served as the Senior Editor for the Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Mustafa joined the United States Foreign Service in 1999 and served in Athens (as a Political Officer for human rights and trafficking), Beirut (as a consular official), Washington, District of Columbia (as Iran desk officer at the National Security Council under Elliot Abrams, and special assistant to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs William Joseph Burns, and Iraq (as Coalition Provisional Authority coordinator for Nineveh under L Paul Bremer).
Mustafa was appointed as senior advisor on the Middle East to Vice President Joe Biden in March 2009.
Achievements
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Born
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Nationality
American
Education
Awards
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Superior Honor Award; Meritorious Honor Award
The Meritorious Honor Award is an award of the United States Department of State.; The Superior Honor Award is an award of the United States Department of State.The Meritorious Honor Award is an award of the United States Department of State.; The Superior Honor Award is an award of the United States Department of State.