Afghanistan, September 2011

Tribal elders say the Taliban are far from defeated.  The Taliban continue to wage a brutal war, taking a toll on Afghan citizens and American forces.  The Department of Defense has identified 1,761 American service members who have died in the Afghan war and related operations as of Sept. 21, about 10 years since the start of the war. In visiting Afghanistan monthly in The Big Picture, we try to reflect our troops presence in the country as well as their interaction with the Afghan people.

US soldiers from the 27th Infantry Regiment fire 120-mm mortar rounds toward insurgent positions at Outpost Monti in Kunar province on Sept. 17. After a decade of fighting in Afghanistan, 130,000 troops from dozens of countries continue to battle resilient Taliban, who use homemade bombs and guerrilla tactics in a bid to undermine the Afghan government and the NATO mission.

The United States, which had largely pulled out of Kunar province, has recently moved troops, including the 27th Infantry Regiment, back in as part of an effort to take the battle to Taliban strongholds. The mountainous region of Kunar borders Pakistan and is often a transit point for Taliban between the countries.

Second Lieutenant Andrew Ferrara, 23, of Torrance, Calif., draws a map in the sand during a briefing before a mission on Sept. 14 at Combat Outpost Monti in Kunar province

Second Lieutenant Andrew Ferrara, with the 27th Infantry Regiment, packs Gobstopper candy with the rest of his arsenal.

Afghan medics take fingerprints from one of the Taliban militants killed during a gun battle with Afghan and NATO forces in Kabul on Sept. 14

Workers from the health ministry call their families during fighting between the militants and Afghan security forces in Kabul on Sept. 13. Taliban insurgents fired rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles at the US Embassy, NATO headquarters, and other buildings in the heart of the Afghan capital. No US citizens were killed, although one grenade pierced the wall of the compound.

Sergeant Daniel Chavez, an Army flight medic from Rio Rancho, N.M., hold his gun aloft as fellow medic Specialist David Bibb, from Santa Fe, waves an American flag as they commemorate the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks at Forward Operating Base Edi in the Helmand province of southern Afghanistan on Sept 11.

Afghan war amputees and children practice walking at the International Committee of the Red Cross orthopedic center on Sept. 10 in Kabul. After more than 30 years of war and a decade since the 9/11 attacks in the United States, thousands of Afghans, both military and civilian, continue to pay a heavy price from the conflicts. The center makes prosthetics for amputees and helps them, as well as Afghans with spinal injuries and children with congenital birth defects, to learn to walk. 

Female would-be Afghan lawmakers attend a protest in front of the Afghan Presidential palace in Kabul, September 7, 2011. Hundreds of supporters of would-be Afghan lawmakers, declared winners by a court but losers by an election body, blocked a main junction in downtown Kabul, the latest scene in a long-running political crisis

Supplies for US Army troops overlook the Hindu Kush mountains at Observation Post Mustang in Kunar Province, Afghanistan. The area, in northeastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border, is a major infiltration route by Taliban fighters coming across from Pakistan and has seen some of the heaviest fighting of the war.