Words Fail Me
Some of you may have read about Malalai Kakar, the intrepid Afghan police officer who also for a long time was the only woman in all of Kandahar with a firearm to her name. Kandahar was the epicenter of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan, and she braved continual death threats in her tireless efforts to free women from harassment and sexual slavery in that area. She was murdered by Taliban gunman on motorcycles last week as she was leaving her home to go to work. She is survived by a husband and six children, one of whom was critically injured in the attack.
Kakar was one of several influential Afghan women profiled by Kim Sengupta in The Independent in 2005, three of whom are now dead while a fourth has fled after surviving an ambush that killed her husband. Investigations -- some by Kakar before her own death -- turned up evidence that points to Pakistani mullahs offering up to $5,000 to assassins targeting women, possibly using sources such as the aforementioned article as a hit list.