Local officials in Afghanistan say a 16-year-old girl killed three Taliban insurgents with an AK-47 during an attack on her village last w...
Local officials in Afghanistan say a 16-year-old girl killed three Taliban insurgents with an AK-47 during an attack on her village last week, according to multiple media accounts.
According to the U.K. Guardian, Qamar Gul’s parents were killed Friday when the group of roughly 40 fighters invaded the village of Geriveh, located in central Ghor province.
During the raid, Taliban fighters knocked on the door of the house where Gul lived with her parents and 12-year-old brother.
“The insurgents came to their doorstep and her mother went to see who was knocking,” Mohamed Aref Aber, spokesman for the provincial governor of Ghor, told the Guardian.
“When she saw that they were armed, she refused to open the door.”
Upon her refusal to open the door, the insurgents shot her dead, then entered the house and shot Gul’s father dead, too.
Aber told the Guardian that Gul took her father’s weapon and fought back.
“Qamar Gul, who was inside the house, took an AK-47 gun the family had and first shot dead the two Taliban fighters who killed her parents, and then injured a few others,” local police chief Habiburahman Malekzada said, according to AFP. The Guardian would later report that three were killed.
Her father was the village chief and a supporter of the government, Malekzada told reporters.
Gul’s heroism didn’t end there.
With her brother’s help, she managed to hold off Taliban insurgents during a one-hour gunfight after they returned to her home to finish their murderous task.
Eventually, pro-government forces and other villagers came to their aid and drive the Taliban off.
The 16-year-old has since become a hero on social media:
She’s also been praised by the Afghan government; the cabinet commended her act during a meeting and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has invited Gul and her brother to visit the presidential palace.
“When I saw them that night, they were shocked but were feeling honored,” district governor Mohammad Rafiq Alam said, according to the Guardian.
Gul and her brother have since been moved to relative safety in the provincial capital of Ghor.
“They were in shock in the first two days and could not talk too much, but are in a good condition now,” Aber said, according to the Guardian.
The siblings have few other relatives, other than a half-brother who also lives in their village, he told the newspaper.
One social media commenter may have summed it up best:
“We know parents are irreplaceable, but your revenge will give you relative peace.”
Celebrating what Qamar Gul did is difficult when you consider her parents were killed in this attack. If anything, it’s an object lesson of why the Taliban — and those willing to use unregenerate violence to bring about a theocratic despotism — need to be extirpated from the face of the planet.
However, there is some solace to be found in the fact Gul managed to remove three of these pests and hold off Taliban fighters until backup arrived — indisputable proof that guns in the right hands save lives.
Most of us will never live in a place like Geriveh or face a situation like the Gul family did, thank God. However, we can all aim to raise daughters as heroic as Qamar Gul, even if we pray they never have to be that kind of hero.
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