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The article discusses the dangers faced by policewomen in Afghanistan and what these dangers say about gender equality in the nation. Topics discussed include the impact of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan in the 21st century on the nation's social views, the views towards women held by Islamic fundamentalist organization the Taliban, and the sexual harassment of policewomen in the nation.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Local officials in western Afghanistan reported Tuesday that a low-level police commander had switched sides with his men and gone to fight for the Taliban, and an American engineer was reported killed in an area less than 50 miles from the Afghan capital. The apparent defection occurred in the Bala Baluk district of Farah Province in the far west part of the country, where the Taliban have been active. The province borders the Taliban heartland of Helmand Province and the largely lawless Ghor Province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Taliban fighters attacked and overran several Afghan border police posts on Wednesday, killing nearly two dozen police officers in a remote area of northeastern Afghanistan, according to the provincial governor. ''Twenty-three Afghan border police officers were martyred and seven others were wounded,'' said Jamaluddin Badar, governor of Nuristan Province, where the attack took place. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

KABUL, Afghanistan -- After intensive negotiations with NATO military commanders, the Afghan government on Wednesday approved a program to establish local defense forces that American military officials hope will help remote areas of the country thwart attacks by Taliban insurgents. Details of the plan are sketchy, but Americans had been promoting the force as a crucial stopgap to combat rising violence here and frustration with the slow pace of training permanent professional security forces -- the bottom-line condition for the American military to begin pulling back from an increasingly unpopular war. Many parts of Afghanistan have no soldiers or police officers on the ground. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Afghans may have been battered by decades of war, forced to flee several times over, but they are not shy. At a ceremony to honor police officers who fought off Taliban insurgents during an attack last week in central Kabul, not only did officers shout out their name and rank as they received promotions, but the cousin of one police officer who was killed took the opportunity to give an earful to Interior Minister Hanif Atmar, who listened and then embraced him. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

QARGHA LAKE, Afghanistan -- As families ate a late dinner at a popular lakeside resort hotel here on a warm summer night, at least three Taliban shot their way into the compound, entered the dining room and took an unknown number of hostages, Afghan officials said early Friday. At dawn there was still gunfire, and Afghan police officers were fighting with the attackers but trying to stage a counterattack so as not to harm the families held hostage, said Gen. Mohammed Zahir, head of the Kabul Criminal Investigation Division. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]