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Taliban kill Kandahar’s senior female police officer

Female police officer Malalai Kakar, head of Kandahar’s department of crimes against women speaks at her office in Kandahar on Thursday. The Taliban claimed responsibility for her murder yesterday. PHOTO: AFP

Taliban gunmen shot dead the highest-profile female police officer in Afghanistan yesterday as she left her home to go to work, officials and the militia said.

The attackers were waiting outside the home of Malalai Kakar, head of the city of Kandahar’s department of crimes against women, and opened fire on her car, Kandahar government spokesman Zalmay Ayoobi said.

“Today between 7am and 8am 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 30s, had been shot in the head.

“She died on the spot and her son was badly injured and is in a coma,” said the doctor, who declined to let his name be used.

A spokesman for the Taliban movement, which targets government officials as part of an growing insurgency, said that the assassins were from his group.

“We killed Malalai Kakar,” Taliban spokesman Yousuf Ahmadi said. “She was our target and we successfully eliminated our target.”

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.

Kandahar is the birthplace of the Taliban, who are mounting a growing insurgency that targets officials working with the government.

During their 1996 to 2001 hold on power, the Taliban stopped women from working outside the home and stopped them from leaving home without a male relative and an all-covering burqa.

Kakar was well-respected in the police force for her bravery, one of her colleagues said on condition of anonymity.

She was the first woman to enroll in the Kandahar police force after the 2001 ouster of the Taliban.
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