Khyar Aziouel

Khyar Aziouel
Amizar of Charnea
Incumbent
Assumed office 1 October 2023
Preceded by	Office Created
Personal details
Born	14 October 1983 Hatheria, Charnea
Spouse	Seda Souri
Children	Ilbaak Souri Askiou Souri
Alma mater	Senusret Military Academy
Profession	Military leader

Khyar Aziouel is a military officer and political leader in the Republic of Charnea. He currently serves as the first Amizar of the Republic, having played a pivotal role in Muttay uprisings and the transitional government which paved the way for the new regime. As Amizar, Khyar as cultivated a reputation as an anti-corruption crusader of a notable nationalistic bent, earning a significant public following outside military circles thanks in large part to his reforms to the Charnean justice system. Prior to his impromptu rise to political prominence, Khyar was a member of the Desert Ranger Corps of the Charnean Army for 24 years, 9 of which he served as the unit's commanding officer, and saw service during the 2004 September War as well as the Fahrani Civil War.

Early life

Khyar was born on the 29th of September 1983 in the maternity ward of Alla military hospital outside of Azut into one of many Kel Dinik families that had been uprooted by the Ninvite War still raging across their Hatherian homeland at the time. The first years of Khyar's life were spent in the Mawla Refugee Camp in the Adjer mountains north of Azut where he was looked after by his mother Manat and his three elder sisters. His father, Mokhtar Afad, was among the earliest recruits to join the Desert Rangers and would die in the war less than a year after the birth of Khyar, his only son. Like many war widows of the Ninvite War era, Manat would face immense hardships in maintaining her children after the deaths of the adult men in the family, a struggle which was all the more severe for their second-class citizenship as Hatherian Kel Dinik. The family was among many which was expelled from Mawla after the 1987 armistice ended the Ninvite War, loosing what little support the state offered to the camp inhabitants and being cast out to fend for themselves. Upon returning to their original settlement at Huskat Unan in western Hatheria, they would find that their dwellings had been destroyed and that their fields had been overrun by the desert in their absence, which was beyond their ability to salvage. The family was taken in by a man known only as Sidi Anoub, a Coptic anchorite turned farmer who took it upon himself to shelter a number of those displaced by the war.

Sidi Anoub showed a high level of deference and respect towards Manat and Khyar's elder sisters, and eventually came to fill the role of a father-figure for the young Khyar despite his harsh disciplinarian manner. At age 6, Khyar began working intensively on Sidi Anoub's homestead, contributing to the labor-intensive task of carving out arable fields for cultivation and protecting them from the encroaching desert. Sidi Anoub assumed the responsibility of Khyar's formation, teaching him to read and write in the Tifinagh, Gharbaic and Latin scripts as well as basic mathematics. Khyar would remain fluent in the Deshrian language as well as his native Tamashek to the present day. Upon turning 16, Anoub convinced Khyar to follow in his biological father's footsteps and join the Charnean Army as a means to achieve a higher standing than Anoub could offer him. Khyar agreed on the condition that Anoub provide for his mother and sisters, in exchange for a remittance of his military salary.

Military career

Field duty

Khyar Aziouel presented himself in person at the Senusret Military Academy in Azut on 5 December 1999 to volunteer for the Ranger Corps. While the Kel Dinik were generally shunned by their Ajamite cousins in the regular military ranks, they were a readily accepted demographic in the far more ethnically diverse Ranger Corps, where they were often prized operatives due to commonly being fluent in both Tamashek and Gharbaic dialects, as well as being familiar with the lay of the land in the conflict-prone Charnean Far East. During the grueling 18 month period of Ranger boot camp, Khyar was noted for exceptional physical ability which regularly put him at the top of his class in physical challenges, which made up for his mediocre marksmanship in the eyes of the supervising officers. Khyar would be fully inducted into the Ranger Corps on July 1st 2001, whereupon he was assigned to a long range reconnaissance unit to conduct long-duration missions in the eastern desert as is typical of fresh Ranger inductees. In this capacity, Khyar was witness to the low-level conflict in Hatheria in the months leading up to the explosion of the September War in 2004.

Although comparatively brief, the fighting during the September War took a toll on the Desert Ranger ranks who were utilized extensively in a counter-insurgent direct action role. For Khyar, the high levels of casualties in his unit meant multiple battlefield promotions. A recently promoted Sergeant (Kumandi) on the eve of the conflict, Khyar would attain the highest enlisted rank in the ICA, Adjutant-Major, in recognition for his service in the Battle of Mab, the final significant clash of the war. By the end of the war, Khyar was one of just five surviving members out of 40 of his original graduating class. Khyar was reportedly deeply disturbed by the loss of his comrades in the September War. He would be pulled from field duties in early 2005 and reassigned to oversee the Ranger School at Senusret, a move which may have been intended either as reward for service or as reprieve from combat duties.

Ranger School

Between 2005 and 2010, Khyar oversaw his own cadre of drill instructors at Senusret that would come to be known as the White Twelve under his tenure, a name derived from Aziouel's decision to implement pseudo-Sakbeist ritual practices into the induction of recruits, particularly when the class was severely divided between different ethno-religious groups. During this time overseeing a training platoon, he would earn his commission and quickly be instated to the rank of Captain of the Rangers, the rank required to oversee the battalion sized training formation at the Senusret Ranger school, due to his effectiveness in the role of educator and leader. Khyar would later state that he owed his success as a training officer at Senusret to his desire to live up to the example of his own mentor, Sidi Anoub. This would prove to be a turning point in Aziouel's career, not only pushing him over the top into the commissioned ranks which was unheard of for a Kel Dinik at the time, but also putting him in a position to be directly involved in the formation of the next generation of Rangers and Ranger officers, laying the groundwork for the intense personal loyalty that many Rangers hold for their now former commander, something that was not seen with any previous or subsequent Ranger officer.

The Ranger Corps suffered a major shakeup towards the end of 2013 as a result of the Seven Day Coup, which would see then-General Martuf Lamine rise to power as Regent over the monarchy and de-facto military dictator of Charnea. Lamine, along with his right-hand man Rezkou Goma, had risen to the high command of the Central Army using the Ranger Corps as a platform to transition from their service in the DA3N, and drew heavily from the ranks of Ranger officers to populate their new regime with loyalists connected to their own legacy, particularly the crop of Ranger upper ranking commanders that they had installed in the wake of their own tenure as leaders of the Corps post-Ninvite War. This presented yet another opportunity to Khyar Aziouel, who experienced an impromptu double-promotion skipping over Major to become a full Colonel, the ranking officer of the entire Ranger Corps. This act of career opportunism was only possible due to the support then-Captain Aziouel had already cultivated as the chief officer of the training battalion, which proved just enough to move the needle in his favor in the eyes of Martuf Lamine and his staff.