Taliban gunmen shot dead the most high-profile female police officer in Afghanistan and wounded her teenaged son as she left home to go to work Sunday, officials and the militia said. Attackers waiting outside the home of Malalai Kakar, head of the city of Kandahar’s department of crimes against women, opened fire on her car as she left, Kandahar government spokesman Zalmay Ayoobi told AFP.
“Today between 7 am and 8 am when she was (in her car) outside her house and going to her job, some gunmen attacked,” Ayoobi said.
“Malalai Kakar died in front of her house. Her son was wounded.”
A doctor in the city’s main hospital said Kakar, in her late 40s, had been shot in the head. “She died on the spot and her son was badly injured and is in a coma,” he said on condition of anonymity. Her son, aged 15, had been driving Kakar to work, police said. The boy later came out of the coma but was in a serious condition.
A spokesman for the extremist Taliban movement, which targets government officials as part of a growing deadly insurgency, said that the assassins were from his group. “We killed Malalai Kakar,” spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi told AFP. “She was our target, and we successfully eliminated our target.”
MALALAI KAKAR
A Woman….. A Wonder…….Our inspiration…
Kakar, a mother of six, was regularly profiled in international media and was known for her courage in one of Afghanistan’s most conservative provinces. A captain in the police force and the most senior policewoman in Kandahar, she headed a team of about 10 women police officers and had reportedly received numerous death threats. Kakar was the first woman to enroll in the Kandahar police force after the 2001 ouster of the Taliban and had been involved in investigating crimes against women and children, and conducting house searches
Kandahar is the birthplace of the extremist Taliban, who are mounting a growing insurgency that targets government officials. During their 1996-2001 hold on power, the Taliban stopped women from working outside the home and even leaving home without a male relative and an all-covering burqa.
The head of Kandahar province’s women’s affairs department was killed in a similar way two years ago. And in June gunmen shot dead a female police officer in the western province of Herat in what was believed to be the first assassination of a female police officer in the war-torn country.
Bibi Hoor, 26, was on her way home when two armed men on motorbikes opened fire, killing her instantly. It was not clear who killed her or why.
Afghanistan’s police force was destroyed by the time the Taliban were removed and is being rebuilt with international assistance. It numbers about 80,000 people, including a few hundred women.
I saw this today on “Yahoo news” and copied this story for us. What an inspirational story for all of us. I just wish and pray that the cause for which she is now dead may continue burning brighter. May her legacy live on… – Glory Christian.
0 comments ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.
Leave a Comment