Malalai ignored these threats, displaying the pugnacity and courage that have marked her career. It began as a precocious child, taking on her father and uncles in political debates about the Soviet invasion, and continued through the Taliban regime, when she organized a clandestine girl’s school in her basement. Malalai knew the political stakes were high – so much more so than in the States – but thought that by facing the danger herself, she would somehow insulate the rest of her family (Malalai sometimes gives the impression she’d like to take on the Taliban leadership with her bare hands, and that that’s a battle she might win).

Then her son, a gentle-mannered, confident 21-year-old university student, was seized in a carefully planned ambush, along with his uncle and two best friends. Kidnappings for money are a regular occurrence in Afghanistan – most moderately wealthy families are likely to know someone who’s been the subject of a ransom demand. Mustafa’s case was immediately different. The kidnappers didn’t just want money; they wanted the release of Taliban prisoners and, crucially, for Malalai to resign. The gang’s leader was none other than Manzur Dadallah, a former Taliban governor of Paktika province and a key link, according to the U.S. military, between that group and al-Qaeda. (Just a few weeks before, Dadallah had kidnapped twenty-three Korean missionaries, killing one early on and another shortly before their release. The rest were ransomed for an alleged $20 million.)

On the one hand was Malalai’s political instinct, which told her to defy the Taliban and other repressive forces; on the other hand was her son’s life. Her decision and its consequences are the subject of this video.