Mursal Nabizada was shot and killed in her home in Kabul around 3 a.m. Saturday. Her bodyguard was also killed. Nabizada was a former lawmaker in the previous Afghan administration. She is believed to be the first lawmaker from the previous administration to be killed since the takeover by the Taliban.

The local police chief said her brother and a second security guard were injured. A third security guard fled the scene with money and jewelry. She used the first floor of her home as her office and that is where she died. The police chief said investigations are underway but would not answer questions about possible motives.

What about the security guard that ran with money and jewelry? Maybe he is involved. Maybe the Taliban were using him as an inside man for information to carry out the hit. Just spitballin’.

Abdullah Abdullah, who was a top official in Afghanistan’s former Western-backed government, said he was saddened by Nabizada’s death and hoped the perpetrators would be punished. He described her as a “representative and servant of the people.”

A former Kandahar parliamentarian, Malalai Ishaqzai, also offered her condolences.

Nabizada was elected in 2019 and stayed in office until the Taliban takeover. She represented Kabul. She was a member of the parliamentary defense commission and she worked for a private non-governmental group, the Institute for Human Resources Development and research.

A true trailblazer – a strong, outspoken woman who stood for what she believed in, even in the face of danger. Despite being offered the chance to leave Afghanistan, she chose to stay and fight for her people. We have lost a diamond, but her legacy will live on. Rest in peace. https://t.co/g0HjMPicl5

— Mariam Solaimankhil (@Mariamistan) January 15, 2023

She stayed in Kabul, though she was offered the opportunity to leave as American forces and other Westerners left the country. She chose to stay and was an outspoken critic of the Taliban. Nabizada was 32 years old. She was from the eastern province of Nangarhar.

Hannah Neumann, a German politician and member of the European Parliament since 2019, blasted Nabizada’s killers. “She was killed in darkness, but the Taliban build their system of gender apartheid in full daylight.”

🖤 Mursal Nabizada, woman parliamentarian in #Afghanistan, was brutally killed alongside her bodyguard in her home, in #Kabul.

I am sad and angry and want the world to know! She was killed in darkness, but the #Taleban build their system of Gender Apartheid in full daylight. pic.twitter.com/7bCPYQpUZs

— Hannah Neumann (@HNeumannMEP) January 15, 2023

When the government of Afghanistan was supported by the United States and other Western countries, women were able to hold political office and lead normal lives. Many women held prominent positions in Afghan society.

Women had worked in prominent positions across Afghan society in the two decades since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, with many becoming judges, journalists and politicians.

Many women in such professions have fled the country, however, since the Taliban returned to power.

Taliban authorities have rapidly squeezed women out of almost all areas of public life, banning them from secondary and higher education, public sector work and even from visiting public parks and baths.

They have also ordered women to cover their bodies in public, ideally in an all-encompassing burka.

All of that progress, leading Afghanistan from a 5th century country to a country trying to modernize, is gone. Thanks to Joe Biden’s disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Taliban rushed in immediately to fill the leadership vacuum created by Biden’s decisions. The Biden administration was both flat-out either naive or deceitful in their predictions of what would happen when the Americans left. They claimed the withdrawal would be organized and efficient. They claimed all those Afghan helpers that U.S. forces depended on for 20 years would be given the chance to make a new life in America, as the Taliban would surely kill them for supporting Westerners. And the administration claimed that the Taliban would not rush in and take over. They were wrong on all counts. Biden allegedly was warned that the Taliban were just waiting for the Americans to leave before they took Kabul and the rest of the country. He didn’t care. He just wanted to bug-out so he could say he ended a 20 year war.

The U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan is a stain on our country’s history that will remain forever. Joe Biden’s arrogance that he knows best about everything, especially foreign policy, is dangerous and has proven deadly. God help those left behind.