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Malalai Kakar - “Malalai Kakar, prominent Afghan policewoman. Murdered in Kandahar” - AFP - From the article Women Who Took on the Taliban - and Lost (I am not sure how to cite an AP photo, so gave as much info as possible - but will continue to look for the proper way.)

Malalai Kakar was a police officer in Afghanistan murdered by the Taliban approximately 2 weeks ago. (Couldn’t find an exact date.) I suppose you can say that the US stint in Afghanistan has been a huge success if you think that violence against women and girls and the resurgence of the Taliban is of no consequence. All of these articles about Kakar are worth reading in full, but I’ve excerpted many of them here. Bold formatting is mine.

The first time I saw Malalai Kakar was in Kandahar city, at a women’s conference organised by a group of spirited young Afghan-Americans determined to give the Taliban a symbolic bloody nose in their spiritual homeland.

It was the autumn of 2003 and, as the country’s only policewoman, Kakar was already a celebrity. She walked into the room wearing a blue burqa and, as she began unloading her things, a pistol emerged from underneath the traditional garment, held in a hand graced by immaculate, red fingernails.

It was an arresting, symbolic image.

‘Just another woman who can be killed.’ - Hamida Ghafour

In an attack claimed by the Taliban, two gunmen on a motorcycle shot and killed Afghanistan’s most high-profile female police officer on Sunday as she prepared to leave for work in the southern city of Kandahar. The police in the city said she died instantly from gunshot wounds to her head. Her 18-year-old son, driving her car, was seriously wounded and taken to the hospital.

The police officer, Malalai Kakar, who was in her mid-40s with six children, was an iconic figure among women’s groups in Afghanistan and abroad. Often profiled in the Afghan and foreign news media, she was one of the leading totems for the wider freedoms gained by women when the Taliban, with their repressive policies toward women, were ousted from power by an American-led coalition in 2001.

The attack was the latest in a wave of attacks on women across Afghanistan for which the Taliban have claimed responsibility. After scattering in the wake of the 2001 offensive, the Islamic militants have regrouped over the past two years.

“We killed Malalai Kakar,” a Taliban spokesman, Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, told the news service Agence France-Presse in a telephone call.

Ms. Kakar, with the rank of captain, was head of Kandahar’s department of crimes against women. She joined the police in the city in 1982, following in the footsteps of her father and brothers, but was forced out after the Taliban captured Kandahar in the mid-1990s and barred all women from working.

Taliban Claim Responsibility in Killing of Key Female Afghan Police Officer - John F. Burns

Commander Kakar, 40, knew her work made her a Taliban target. She led a unit of 10 policewomen specialising in domestic violence cases. She was uncompromising with suspected abusers, men who in the past had relied on male police officers to turn a blind eye.

“I’ve been accused of being rough with husbands who beat up their wives” she said. “But I’m angry, we try to apply the law in the right way and the constitution is supposed to protect women’s rights.”

Women who took on the Taliban - and Lost - This article elaborates on 3 of the 5 women in public life they had interviewed when the Taliban was ousted who have since been assassinated. Highly recommended read. (As are all the articles.)

Yesterday, the Taliban claimed responsibility for Kakar’s killing, saying she had been a long-term target. In a perverse nod to gender equality, in killing her, they acknowledged that an Afghan woman can be as deadly an enemy as any man.

Unusual as she clearly was, Malalai Kakar was also part of a long-standing tradition of Afghan women who “outman” their men in bravery. These are women who take sides in wars, taking up arms for or against the government. In the past, such women used to be mainly the stuff of legends. They were admired and held up as role models but not feared, since they weren’t real.

Early Afghan historical works are full of such women. Reminiscent of the epic German poem the Nibelungenlied, these tales of warriors, horses and fortresses feature young women such as Shah Bori, described as a girl with a taste for male clothing and horse riding. She is said to have liked living the life of a warrior, refusing for a long time to get married. She is also said to have died fighting the troops of King Babur, in the 16th century.

Then there’s Nazauna, who, legend has it, single-handedly protected the Zabol fortress with her sword; that was in the 18th century. And in the 19th century, there was the original Malalai, after whom Malalai Kakar was named: Malalai of Maiwand, who turned her headscarf into a banner and led a successful rebellion against the British.

The Fighting Women of Afghanistan by Nushin Arbabzadah

Kandahar’s Woman Detective

I worked very briefly on helping to design an awareness campaign during my time at Human Rights Watch about the Taliban targeting girls’ schools. And yet the dominant narrative seemed to be how much of a success the US tour in Afghanistan was. Not so fast.