Capt. Fareed’s spine-chilling stunts are for peace’s sake

For a lot of people, trying extreme sports is the way to challenge their inner strengths and get to know how to live life to the fullest with feelings of exhilaration.
After all, such an adventurous lifestyle brings about a new sort of spark in their attitude. It’s no surprise that this unique survival instinct is what makes them exponentially different from others.
However, in the case of Capt. Fareed A. Lafta, known as Iraq’s solo “Superman for Peace,” the intention is far more serious and pressing. “I am proud to be an Iraqi and it feels extremely good to be a messenger of peace for all humanity,” he says.
His interest in extreme sports was discovered when he was very young. “The reason I got into extreme sports was because I wanted freedom in my life. When I was about 2 or 3 years old, I thought of myself as a bird, so I was acting like one; eating without hands, singing like them, but I soon realized I am a human and can’t fly.”
At the age of five or six, it all changed when I did something weird. I climbed the cupboard with the help of a chair in my bedroom and in a split second, jumped over the pillows. When my mom came into my room and saw that it was in disarray, she got very angry,” he says. “That was my first leap into the world of stunts. Since then, there was no looking back at all.”
As an individual, he believes it’s very cool to be seen as a stuntman and says, “I always feel happy for a couple of reasons. First, it was my childhood dream, second it was my passion and third, it was because of extreme sports I found the freedom I was looking for in my life.”
All of his feats that are reckoned to challenge air, water and space have been aimed at cultivating peace and love among different cultures. There is hardly anything he hasn’t tried, whether its scuba-diving, paragliding, paramotoring, free falling, cluster ballooning, space travel, flying a jet fighter, motorcycling, mountain biking, power parachuting, horseriding, Muay Thaiboxing and sailing.
He has made his mark everywhere. “My mission is to foster peace and greater understanding among countries and cultures. I am trying to be a role model for young Iraqis and Arab youth in general, not just to promote the extreme sports culture but also to inspire them to be positive people,” he says.
In fact, Fareed experienced the stirring sensation of flying even before his first skydive. “I started skydiving in 2005, but before that, I was a paraglider, so I knew how to fly. Until then, I hadn’t performed a free fall. In order to make this dream of mine come true, I visited the drop zone at Umm-Al-Quwain in the UAE, where I enrolled in the skydiving course,” he says.
His first skydive meant a lot to him, giving his life a complete new dimension to focus on. Soon after his training was over, he traveled to Russia with an international group of adventure geeks obsessed with the idea of leaping across the Himalayas.
They first went to Nepal to learn the know-how of such a dangerous jump. They had to stay here for 21 days to pass all the tests. Finally, that big moment came. He performed the first-ever skydive above Mount Everest at 30,000 feet in October 2008. Asked how he felt at that moment, he said, “I was feeling absolute happiness. I felt nirvana. I was nervous about not having the chance to do it though.”
Four years later, he set a Guinness World Record for carrying the largest flag to be flown whilst skydiving over the Skydive Chicago facility in the US, which measured 4,023.2 meters and weighed 115kg. He also flew in a lawn chair attached to 350 huge cluster helium balloons for more than eight hours in Oregon, USA. In July 2010, he became the first Iraqi parachutist to jump at 90 degree to the North Pole’s highest tip from 3,000 feet above the frozen Arctic Ocean.
In 2009, he was the first Iraqi to have flown to the edge of space inside an MIG 29 at 90,000 feet. Though he became the first person from Iraq to qualify as a cosmonaut in the same year, he didn’t get the chance to travel to space. “I trained in Russia for many months trying to travel to space, but unfortunately, I couldn’t find a sponsor-government nor private entity to help me achieve this milestone,” Lafta says. The other challenging task he embarked upon was as a scuba diver, when he went beneath the sea’s surface to achieve a lung-busting depth record of 80 meters, which lasted for 4.5 minutes.
Nevertheless, extreme sports come with risks. One needs to be vigilant all the time and should take precautions as extreme as the sport itself. “Firstly, I believe we are very organized in this sector because we have associations who are responsible for imposing strict rules. You need to be super strong mentally and make sure you are physically fit and have proper training to be a part of such an extreme sport culture. For that, you must have access to an authorized training center, have a license and be in possession of proper equipment. You can be a crazy person but you can’t be reckless, so you better know your skill limits,” he says. “Secondly, you should keep a lid on your overconfidence, which can prove fatal at times. Moreover, do not try to impress the masses beyond your safety level.”
“I have had injuries but not a major one. It’s all thanks to taking precautions and implementing everything required. That’s why we have been able to avoid big hazards so far.”
“Do you meditate as well?” He replied ecstatically, “No way, not as a professional but if we enjoy life and try to keep ourselves happy. That’s more than enough. It’s all about you as there is no special recipe to be happy, man. It’s your choice.”
Raised in Baghdad, he moved to Dubai with his family at the outbreak of war in 2003. Here, he got an amazing platform to continue with his childhood passion for motorcycle racing. In a short span of time, he turned professional. “Coming to Dubai was really significant and first priority because we had family business here. I am not a refugee but a proud resident of this very nice city. I just love living here with my dad, brother and sister. We have enjoyed every moment since we arrived here, traveling a lot,” he says. “What I like more about this beautiful city is its ample freedom for all. Not to forget, it’s safe and sunny. What more do you need!”
Fareed Lafta has another tremendous Guinness World Record to his credit now. He assembled volunteers from 200 different nationalities to put together the largest Peace Dove in the colors of the UAE flag-red, white, green and black. “I am trying to use my success to promote peace and I think Dubai was my favorite place for this huge endeavor because it has people from all over the world living in peace and harmony,” he says.
Asked about returning to his birthplace and starting an academy to teach these skills to young Iraqis, he said happily, “I would love to go back and do so. But it needs a lot of money.”
“With sports, we can build high ethics by teaching people how valuable teamwork and sharing can be. I also believe we can build sustainable peace through sport in the future.”
For him, every adventure has been a memorable one. “They were all the same but had different flavors,” he says.

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