If this is what are troops are dying for…BRING THEM ALL HOME! You can’t tame wild animals!

Afghan lawmaker Fariba Ahmadi Kakar speaks with the Associated Press in Kabul, Afghanistan, about how she was kidnapped by insurgents. Her four-week ordeal ended this month after the Afghan gover nment gave in to her captors’ demands to free some prisoners.

Taliban targets prominent women in Afghanistan

Lawmaker released by insurgents was used as bargaining chip

By Nahal Toosi http://rochesterdemocrat.ny.newsmemory.com/

Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan —

The Taliban kidnappers moved her to at least 13 homes, made her sleep on the ground, and kept ask­ing where she’d been, what she’d done and whom she knew. Every few days, she would be given a chance to call her family.

They knew they need­ed to keep their bargain­ing chip in good shape.

Fariba Ahmadi Kakar’s four-week ordeal ended this month after the Af­ghan government gave in to her captors’ demands to free some prisoners. In an interview with The Asso­ciated Press, the 39-year­old Afghan lawmaker gave a rare account of what it’s like for a woman to be held captive by the Islamist insurgents.

“I wasn’t tortured. I wasn’t under constant stress. But I wasn’t free,” Kakar said.

She’s also lucky to be alive.

Female leaders hurt

Since July, several prominent women have been attacked in Afghani­stan. Among them: two po­lice officers who were killed in the south, an Indi­an author living in eastern Afghanistan who was killed years after her memoir about 1990s life under Taliban rule be­came a Bollywood film; and a senator who was wounded in an ambush.

These and other at­tacks on female leaders in recent years have gener­ally been blamed on the Taliban, though the Af­ghan militant group, mindful of cultural sensi­tivities, usually does not admit to targeting women. The assaults have added to growing fears that what few gains Afghan women have made since the U.S. toppled the Taliban gov­ernment in 2001 could be erased once American-led foreign troops finish with­drawing next year.

Being a woman in the public eye is a special challenge in Afghanistan, where tribal and conser­vative Islamic mores have subjected women across the social spectrum to vio­lence and discrimination.

The spotlight can be a shield, making men think twice about mistreating a woman and perhaps even guaranteeing that she’ll be assigned a bodyguard. At the same time, it can make a woman a more at­tractive target for insur­gents hoping to spread fear and weaken confi­dence in the Afghan gov­ernment.

Kakar is one of 69 female lawmakers in the 249-seat lower house of parliament, and she’s nev­er been naive about the danger she and other prominent Afghan women face.

The kidnapping

Kakar, her four chil­dren, her bodyguard and her driver were traveling from southern Kandahar province to Kabul, the Af­ghan capital, when a hand­ful of armed militants on motorbikes appeared ahead of them on the out­skirts of Ghazni city. The gunmen made the driver turn off the highway onto a bumpy, dirt road that led to a small village. The militants put the group in the home of an Afghan Taliban family, separating the men from the women and saying lit­tle. Kakar, though, quickly began pleading with the captors to free her three daughters and son, ages 2 to 20. She tried to calm her children but did not down­play what was happening. “I told them, ‘This is the situation in this country. I will try to make sure you are safe,’ ” she said. The Taliban fighters let her call her family. Within a couple of days her chil­dren were released to her mother and brother. Ka­kar, though, was shifted from place to place and kept separate from her driver and bodyguard.

Used as leverage

The militants who kid­napped Kakar had a dif­ferent goal: They wanted the government to release some prisoners, and Ka­kar was their leverage.

Now and then, Kakar would be interrogated by the militants — usually three or four of them, and they didn’t hide their faces. They’d ask her questions about her trav­els, her political activities and if she had met Presi­dent Hamid Karzai. None­theless, they always treat­ed her with “full respect,” she said. Kakar leads a privi­leged life compared to most Afghans, and she was deeply troubled by the poverty and ignorance around her. There were no beds to sleep on, the food was often “inedible,” and there was no sense of any government presence. When she needed medi­cine, she’d give the mili­tants some of her own money so they could buy it for her. In early September, the captors told Kakar it would be just days before she’d be free. That same week, militants dragged Indian author Sushmita Banerjee out of the home she shared with her Af­ghan husband in eastern Afghanistan and fatally shot her. Banerjee’s 1990s tale of life under the Tali­ban was the basis for the 2003 movie “Escape from Taliban.” Kakar was freed Sept. 7. Her bodyguard and driver were released sep­arately.

But there are conflict­ing accounts about whom the government freed in exchange. Zholina Faizi, secre­tary of the Ghazni provin­cial council and one of the few in the government willing to discuss the mat­ter, told the AP that seven male insurgents and one woman were released.

But the Taliban, in a statement announcing Ka­kar’s release, said the prisoners were “four in­nocent women and two children.” The militants also emphasized they had treated Kakar “in a very Islamic and humane way.”

The ordeal has left Ka­kar even more deter­mined to pursue her politi­cal activism.

“I am even braver than before,” she said. “I will defend Afghanistan, espe­cially the women, until the last drop of my blood.”