The Taliban have targeted their usual barbaric actions against Malalai Kakar, Afghanistan’s prominent policewoman. Lt-Col Kakar was brutally murdered as she was heading to the Kandahar police department where she worked in the in the crimes against women unit.
IWF has been a proponent of women joining post-conflict reconstruction, which includes taking part in security forces within their nations. While Kakar’s murder is an ugly reminder of women’s vulnerability in their role to rebuild and protect society, it also is a reminder of Afghan women’s resilience and motivation to join forces against terrorists in protecting their homeland.
News of Malalai Kakar’s murder has been covered by the BBC.
Taleban rebels, who banned women from joining the police when they were in power, said they had carried out the shooting.
“We killed Malalai Kakar,” a Taleban spokesman told AFP news agency.
“She was our target, and we successfully eliminated our target.”
The BBC’s Martin Patience in Kabul says Ms Kakar was one of only a few hundred female police officers in Afghanistan and that she had previously received death threats.
Ms Kakar, who was reported to be in her early 40s and had six children, was one of the most high-profile women in the country.
She has figured prominently in the national and international media, partly due to a famous episode in which she killed three would-be assassins in a shoot-out – although she said her everyday life involved tackling theft, fights and murders.
Ms Kakar joined Kandahar’s police force in 1982, after her father and brothers were also police officers.