General Sher Mohammad Karimi (born November 11, 1945) is the Chief of Army Staff in the Military of Afghanistan. An ethnic Pashtun, Karimi was born in Khost Province of Afghanistan. After the 1978 Saur Revolution in Afghanistan, Karimi was arrested and incarcerated by the PDPA communist party because of his Western education. He was employed as a director during Dr. Mohammad Najibullah Government in ministry of defence. Unlike many of his communist colleagues and the majority of the Afghan officer corps, Karimi had never received training in the Soviet Union. He was eventually forced into exile in Pakistan until the removal of the Taliban government in late 2001.