Life and war in Afghanistan: October 2012

Photos of everyday life in Afghanistan as coalition forces attempt to transfer responsibilities to Afghan troops.

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Oct. 1, 2012

An Afghan man sells watermelons on his cart in an old part of Kabul.

Mohammad Ismail / Reuters

Oct. 4, 2012

U.S. Army soldiers pay their respects by the boots, gun, cap and dog tags of Army Staff Sgt. Orion N. Sparks and Sgt. Jon Athan A. Gollnitz during a memorial in their honor at Forward Operating Base Shank in Logar province.

Munir Uz Zaman / AFP/Getty Images

Oct. 3, 2012

Afghan men sing and dance during a wedding party in Kabul.

Ahmad Nazar / AP

Oct. 4, 2012

Students attend a class in a tent at a school in Jalalabad.

Parwiz / Reuters

Oct. 4, 2012

Female Afghan students play at a school in Jalalabad.

Parwiz / Reuters

Oct. 4, 2012

An Afghan artist paints an image of Afghan singer Ahmad Zahir during "The Sound Central Festival" at the French Cultural Centre in Kabul. More than a hundred artists attended the third edition of the festival, a once unique gathering in Afghanistan, where music was banned by the Taliban.

Jawad Jalali / AFP/Getty Images

Oct. 5, 2012

Afghan internal displaced refugee women carry water on their head near their shelter at the outskirts of Kabul.

Omar Sobhani / Reuters

Oct. 5, 2012

An Afghan man holds his ram as he walks at the outskirts of Kabul.

Omar Sobhani / Reuters

Oct. 3, 2012

A former Afghan police officer, Amanullah, left, is presented to the media after he was arrested by security forces in Herat. Amanullah, 30, is accused of being complicit in an attack carried out by Taliban insurgents on a police station which resulted in the death of three Afghanistan policemen, officials told Agence France-Presse.

Aref Karimi / AFP/Getty Images

Oct. 2, 2012

A South Korean policeman shows Afghan policemen how to do cardiopulmonary resuscitation at the Afghan National Police training centre in Pawan. Afghan security forces are dying at five times the rate of NATO soldiers, according to the latest available figures provided by ISAF this year.

Rahmat / AFP/Getty Images

Oct. 1, 2012

An Afghan girl carries firewood for her home in the Gushta district of Nangarhar province, east of Kabul.

Rahmat Gul / AP

Oct. 2, 2012

An Afghan woman with her hands decorated with henna sits while waiting to go back to Afghanistan from a United Nations-funded repatriation centre in Quetta. More than 5.7 million Afghans have returned home in the last decade following the U.S.-led invasion, and they constitute nearly a quarter of the population, according to the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. However, less than 70,000 went back last year, compared with 112,600 in 2010, it said.

Naseer Ahmed / Reuters

Oct. 1, 2012

Afghan girls ride donkeys carrying firewood for their home in the Gushta district of Nangarhar province, east of Kabul.

Rahmat Gul / AP

Oct. 1, 2012

An Afghan man works at a bakery at the old part of Kabul.

Mohammad Ismail / Reuters

Oct. 1, 2012

An Afghan man sells bananas on his cart along a street in the old part of Kabul.

Mohammad Ismail / Reuters

Oct. 1, 2012

Afghan boy walks his dog on a hill above Kabul.

Ahmad Jamshid / AP

Oct. 2, 2012

Mohamed, an Afghan man who works as a day laborer in construction, makes his way home after work in a neighborhood overlooking Kabul. According to the World Bank more than a third of the population of Afghanistan live below the poverty line, and more than half are at serious risk of falling into poverty.

Roberto Schmidt / AFP/Getty Images

Oct. 2, 2012

A man rides the top of a small truck making its way down a dusty road in the Afghan mountains of Logar province south of Kabul. It is estimated that two-thirds of the some 42,000 kilometers of roads in the country remain unpaved.

Roberto Schmidt / AFP/Getty Images

Oct. 2, 2012

Afghan girls take part in a tae kwon do match in Herat in preparation for selection to the Afghan Olympic team. The Taliban regime did not allow women and girls to play sports as part of a raft of measures that kept them uneducated and out of the public domain.

Aref Karimi / AFP/Getty Images

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