Afghan trailblazer confronts Taliban in Moscow

KABUL - Fawzia Koofi was hesitant to face the Taliban militants who jailed her husband, threatened to stone her for wearing nail polish, and - when she became a high-profile MP and women's rights champion - tried to assassinate her.

But the trailblazing politician and mother of two daughters could not refuse a rare invitation this month to stand before her oppressors and declare unequivocally that their brand of misogyny and prejudice would never again take root in Afghanistan.

"It was not that I wanted to do it, but I was doing it for the women of Afghanistan," she said in an interview at her Kabul home.