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The third female police officer in Afghanistan this summer has been killed by militants. Lieutenant Nigara, the highest ranking female police officer, was shot in the neck this week in Helmand province and died shortly after. Her murder comes just weeks after the killing of Afghan Indian activist and writer Sushmita Banerjee. High profile Afghan women are particularly vulnerable in an increasingly dangerous country.

The murders come at the same time as a major attack on a US consulate in the Western province of Herat that left 2 security guards dead, and the shooting death of a senior election official in Kunduz province. And just yesterday, an attack on Afghan police in Badakhshan Province resulted in 18 dead and 12 kidnapped.

As US forces begin their drawdown in anticipation of next year’s end-date, some analysts see the Taliban’s approach as creating as much chaos as possible to undermine public trust in the Afghan government. Nominations for the next Afghan presidential election are being accepted starting this month.

GUEST: Douglas Wissing, award winning independent journalist who has reported widely on the war in Afghanistan, and author of Funding the Enemy: How US Taxpayers Bankroll the Taliban. He traveled to Afghanistan earlier this year.

Click here to listen to Uprising’s hour-long special interview with Douglas Wissing on his book Funding the Enemy.