The Taliban's War on Women

Three years ago, The Independent interviewed five Afghan women for a story on female emancipation. Today, three are dead and a fourth has fled after a botched assassination attempt that killed her husband. Jihadists have been targeting female teachers, parliamentarians, journalists, civil servants, and security officials, whose successes threaten Taliban mores. The most recent of The Independent's former subjects to be killed is Malalai Kakar, Afghanistan's leading policewoman. "It is most important that now women try to get to positions of power to stop things like that happening again," said a policewoman who worked with Kakar. "It is dangerous. But we cannot go back to those days again."