Dozens of Afghan women have joined the fight against the Taliban insurgents who are trying to expand insurgency in key Northern provinces.
The uprising has taken shape in the northern Jawzjan province under the leadership of a female militia commander to stop the Taliban insurgents seize control of the strategic areas in this province, including Darzab district.
The group led by a 53-year-old woman, Zarmina, has risen to 45 fighters, including mainly Uzbeks and Aimaqs, a Persian-speaking minority in Jowzjan, a multiethnic province that borders Turkmenistan to the north.
“The number of police personnel was too small, so we had to take up guns alongside our husbands,” Zarmina told RFE/RL’s Afghan Service. “As the Taliban attacked a police post, I put aside my scarf and fired from different places.”
“I had 21 bullets and killed seven Taliban,” she claimed.
The latest uprising by the Afghan women in the North comes as an Afghan woman killed at least 25 Taliban militants late in 2014 to avenge the murder of her son who was a police officer in western Farah province.
The woman, Reza Gul, was forced to pick up arms after her son was shot dead by Taliban militants in front of her eyes.
Her son was leading a small group of police forces in a check post located in a village of Farah province.
