Unveiling the Lone Female Cop in Kandahar
Oct. 2 -- In her crisp khaki uniform with navy-blue epaulettes, with a pistol tucked snugly in her hip holster and a polished leather cartridge-belt casually slung over her shoulder, Capt. Malalai Kakar cuts an imposing figure of a female supercop on the job — indoors.
But out on the sometimes mean, dusty streets of Kandahar, an unflattering, all-encompassing chaudari, or traditional robe, gets tossed over her dashing ensemble as Kakar tears through town on her next policing assignment.
Deep in Taliban terrain, in the birthplace of a regime that sent shivers down the spines of gender rights activists, in a city where women rarely emerge from their homes, Kakar is the only female cop on one of the world's most dangerous policing beats.
She does her work like a man, she says. And in a patriarchal, tribal society where the gun is often the ultimate arbiter of power, the wiry 35-year-old mother of six is conscious of her unique status as the city's only pistol-packing mama.
"I am the only woman in this city with a pistol," she tells ABCNEWS.com during a phone interview from Kandahar. "I also have a Kalashnikov. I have it not so much to attack other people, but to protect myself."
Taking on the Terrorists
Almost two years since the fall of the Taliban, the security situation in and around the southern Afghan city of Kandahar has been steadily deteriorating.
Girls' schools and moderate mullahs considered loyal to the government in Kabul have increasingly come under attack in recent months, and aid agencies in the area have been periodically forced to shut down their operations due to mounting assaults.
As the war in Iraq dominates international attention, experts say the war on terror in Central Asia is being exacerbated by Taliban regroupings in southern Afghanistan and across the Pakistan border.
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