US command in Afghanistan changes hands in wake of attacks on Karzai's inner circle
Transition comes hours after gunmen strapped with explosives kill key presidential aide
Photos: 2012
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Related slideshows
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Mourners at the funeral of former Taliban minister Maulvi Arsala Rahmani, a senior member of the High Peace Council, in Kabul on May 14, 2012. Gunmen shot dead the top Afghan peace negotiator, dealing a fresh blow to the country's attempts to negotiate a deal with Taliban insurgents, security sources said. (Mohammad Ismail / Reuters) Back to slideshow navigation -
Afghan cardiologist Rahima Stanikzair, 43, monitors an infant's heart at the French Medical Institute for Children in Kabul on May 13. (Bay Ismoyo / AFP - Getty Images) Back to slideshow navigation -
Afghan policemen perform a drill during a graduation ceremony at the Adraskan police training centerin Herat province on May 13, where some 900 officers completed their eight-week training course. Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced a new transfer of security control from NATO that will see local forces take responsibility for 75 percent of Afghanistan's population. (Aref Karimi / AFP - Getty Images) Back to slideshow navigation -
European Union ambassador Vygaudas Usackas attempts a putt at the Kabul golf course on May 11. The air at Afghanistan's only golf course is certainly easier to breathe than the dust and pollution of the chaotic capital, but golfers accustomed to the soothing sight of immaculate lawns would be in for a shock. (Bay Ismoyo / AFP - Getty Images) Back to slideshow navigation
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A cinema goer watches a Pashto film at Cinema Pamir in Kabul on May 3. Once a treasured luxury for the elite, Afghan cinemas are dilapidated and reflect an industry on the brink of collapse from conflict and financial neglect. (Danish Siddiqui / Reuters) Back to slideshow navigation
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U.S. President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai meet to sign the Strategic Partnership Agreement at the Presidential Palace in Kabul on May 2. The deal ensures American military and financial support for the Afghan people for at least a decade beyond 2014, the deadline for most foreign combat forces to withdraw. (Kevin Lamarque / Reuters) Back to slideshow navigation
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Editor's note:
This image contains graphic content that some viewers may find disturbing.Click to view the image, or use the buttons above to navigate away.
Covered in blood, a survivor is driven from the scene of a suicide bomb attack in Kabul on May 2. Taliban insurgents claimed responsibility for a suicide attack in the Afghan capital shortly after US President Barack Obama left the city. (Bay Ismoyo / AFP - Getty Images) Back to slideshow navigation -
Boys play a pitch gambling game in Band-e-Qargha Gulestan Park in Kabul on April 27. (Johannes Eisele / AFP - Getty Images) Back to slideshow navigation
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U.S. soldier Nicholas Dickhut from 5-20 infantry regiment attached to 82nd Airborne points his rifle at a doorway after coming under fire by the Taliban while on patrol in Zharay district in Kandahar province on April 26. (Baz Ratner / Reuters) Back to slideshow navigation
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An old taxi transporting sacks of vegetables navigates a flooded street after heavy rains in Kabul on April 21. (Ahmad Nazar / AP) Back to slideshow navigation
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An Afghan National Army soldier keeps watch as a NATO helicopter flies over the site of an attack in Jalalabad province on April 15. Gunmen launched multiple attacks in the Afghan capital Kabul and three other provinces. "These attacks are the beginning of the Spring Offensive and we had planned them for months," Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told Reuters. (Parwiz / Reuters) Back to slideshow navigation
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A woman cries as she talks on the phone to her family during a gunbattle in Kabul on April 15. The Taliban launched a series of coordinated attacks on at least seven sites across the Afghan capital, targeting NATO headquarters, the parliament and diplomatic residences in one of the most serious assaults on the city since U.S.-backed Afghan forces removed the Taliban from power in 2001. (Ahmad Jamshid / AP) Back to slideshow navigation
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Afghan special forces are seen on top of a building which had been occupied by militants, in Kabul on April 16, 2012. A brazen, 18-hour Taliban attack on the Afghan capital ended when insurgents who had holed up overnight in two buildings were overcome by heavy gunfire from Afghan-led forces and pre-dawn air assaults from U.S.-led coalition helicopters. (Musadeq Sadeq / AP) Back to slideshow navigation
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Editor's note:
This image contains graphic content that some viewers may find disturbing.Click to view the image, or use the buttons above to navigate away.
Afghan policemen use mobile phones to photograph the dead body of an insurgent lying on the floor inside a building in Kabul on April 16. A total of 36 Taliban militants were killed as they mounted a wave of attacks across Afghanistan, Interior Minister Bismillah Mohammadi said. (Shah Marai / AFP - Getty Images) Back to slideshow navigation -
Afghan policemen and officials stand next to the wreckage of a car used in a suicide attack in front of the building from which insurgents launched an assault, in Kabul on April 16. (Massoud Hossaini / AFP - Getty Images) Back to slideshow navigation
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An Afghan technician works on a prosthetic limb at one of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) hospitals for war victims and the disabled in Kabul on April 14. The ICRC orthopaedic project, which began in 1988 in Kabul, now has seven centers in Afghanistan. (Johannes Eisele / AFP - Getty Images) Back to slideshow navigation
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A girl holds a lamb on the outskirts of Herat on April 10. (Aref Karimi / AFP - Getty Images) Back to slideshow navigation
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Victims of a suicide attack are transported in the back of a police truck in Guzara, Herat province, on April 10. A suicide blast blew up a four-wheel-drive vehicle outside a government office, killing and wounding scores of people, authorities said. (Hoshang Hashimi / AP) Back to slideshow navigation
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Injured U.S. Army dog handler Aaron Yoder and his dog Bart, attached to Alpha troop 4-73 Cavalry Regiment, 4th brigade 82nd Airborne division, are evacuated in a helicopter during a fire exchange with Taliban fighters while on a mission in the Maiwand district in Kandahar province on April 9. Yoder was transfered to Texas for further treatment to a leg wound, The Goshen News reported. (Baz Ratner / Reuters) Back to slideshow navigation
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Schoolchildren carry their chairs to a class in an open area in Mazar-i Sharif on April 9. At the start of the school year in March, Minister for Education Ghulam Farooq Wardak said there are now 8.4 million schoolgoing children in Afghanistan, 39% of them girls. But he added that 9.5 million children were still being deprived of education in the country. (Qais Usyan / AFP - Getty Images) Back to slideshow navigation
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Editor's note:
This image contains graphic content that some viewers may find disturbing.Click to view the image, or use the buttons above to navigate away.
Wounded U.S. soldiers lie on the ground at the scene of a suicide attack in Maimanah, the capital of Faryab province, on April 4. A suicide bomber blew himself up, killing at least 10 people, including three NATO service members, officials said. (Gul Buddin Elham / AP) Back to slideshow navigation -
A man carries a bundle of wood in Nahr-i Sufi in the province of Kunduz on March 30. The Afghan economy has always been based on agriculture, despite the fact that only 13% of its total land is arable and just 8% is currently cultivated. (Johannes Eisele / AFP - Getty Images) Back to slideshow navigation
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Security forces escort captured Taliban militants disguised in female dress to be presented to the media in Mehterlam, Laghman province, on March 28. Afghan intelligence forces said they had arrested seven Taliban militants. (Rahmat Gul / AP) Back to slideshow navigation
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A ceremony at the Sakhi Shrine in Kabul on March 20 during celebrations marking the start of Nowruz, the Persian new year. Coinciding with the spring equinox, it is marked in parts of the Balkans, the Black Sea Basin, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Middle East and other regions. (Massoud Hossaini / AFP - Getty Images) Back to slideshow navigation
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Wreckage of a Turkish Sikorsky military helicopter lying at the scene where it crashed at the Bagrami district on the outskirts of Kabul on March 16. Two children and 12 Turkish soldiers were among those killed when a helicopter crashed into a house, officials said. (Jawad Jalali / EPA) Back to slideshow navigation
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U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai during a visit to the Presidential Palace in Kabul on March 15. (Scott Olson / AFP - Getty Images) Back to slideshow navigation
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A villager points to a spot where a family was allegedly shot in their home by a rogue US soldier in Alkozai, a village in Panjwayi, Kandahar province on March 11. An AFP reporter counted 16 bodies — including women and children — in three Afghan houses after the soldier walked out of his base and began shooting civilians. (Mamoon Durrani / AFP - Getty Images) Back to slideshow navigation
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Editor's note:
This image contains graphic content that some viewers may find disturbing.Click to view the image, or use the buttons above to navigate away.
A mourner cries over the bodies of civilians, allegedly shot by a rogue US soldier, after they were loaded into the back of a truck in Alkozai on March 11. NATO's International Security Assistance Force said it had arrested a soldier "in connection to an incident that resulted in Afghan casualties in Kandahar province", without giving a figure for the dead or wounded. (Jangir / AFP - Getty Images) Back to slideshow navigation -
A U.S. soldier keeps watch as Taliban militants hand over their weapons. A group of 100 Taliban members were taking part in the government's reconciliation and reintegration program in Laghman province on March 12. (Parwiz / Reuters) Back to slideshow navigation
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Smoke rises from the site of a bomb blast in Spin Boldak on March 7, 2012. A motorcycle bomb in southern Afghanistan near Pakistan’s border killed four civilians and injured eight, Parwiz Najib, a senior official in the provincial governor’s office said. (Akhter Gulfam / EPA) Back to slideshow navigation
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Police transfer an injured man to a local hospital in Spin Boldak after a motorcycle bomb exploded on March 7. (Akhter Gulfam / EPA) Back to slideshow navigation
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A graffiti piece by Shamsia Hassani and Qasem Foushanji is seen on a wall in Kabul on March 5. Encased in a head-to-toe burqa, the image depicts a distraught woman slumped on a cement stairwell, the work of Afghanistan's first street artists who use graffiti to chronicle violence and oppression. (Mohammad Ismail / Reuters) Back to slideshow navigation
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A boy from a displaced family holds up his food voucher as he fights with others to get rations from a truck organized by the World Food Program in Kabul on March 4. Every day, 400 people join the ranks of a half million displaced by fighting and natural disaster in Afghanistan. Many are left to starve, even in the capital Kabul. (Anja Niedringhaus / AP) Back to slideshow navigation
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Afghans shout anti-U.S. slogans during a protest outside the U.S. military base in Bagram, north of Kabul on Feb. 21. More than 2,000 Afghans protested outside the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan on following a report that foreign troops had improperly disposed of copies of the Quran and other religious items. A pile of wood and tires, set on fire by the protesters, burns in the background. (Mohammad Ismail / Reuters) Back to slideshow navigation
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A U.S. soldier wields his assault rifle as another soldier handles a shotgun while standing at the gate of Bagram airbase during a protest against Quran desecration on Feb. 21. (Massoud Hossaini / AFP - Getty Images) Back to slideshow navigation
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An Afghan man aims a slingshot toward U.S. soldiers at the gate of Bagram airbase during a protest on Feb. 21. (Shah Marai / AFP - Getty Images) Back to slideshow navigation
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Newly graduated Afghan border police take their oath during their graduation ceremony at the border police headquarters in Jalalabad, Nangarhar province, east of Kabul, on Jan. 31. More than 40 border police officers graduated after receiving 10 weeks of training in Jalalabad. (Rahmat Gul / AP) Back to slideshow navigation
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Afghan police look at a police vehicle that was hidden under dried plants during an operation in Qarabagh, Ghazni province, west of Kabul, on Friday, Feb. 17. The vehicle had previously been captured by Taliban militants and was recovered by Afghan police. (Rahmatullah Naikzad / AP) Back to slideshow navigation
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Afghan President Hamid Karzai, left, arrives with Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, center, at Prime Minister House in Islamabad, Pakistan, on Feb. 16. Karzai arrived in Pakistan for talks on how Islamabad can facilitate peace negotiations with the Afghan Taliban. (B.k. Bangash / AP) Back to slideshow navigation
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A wounded child receives treatment at a hospital in Nangarhar Province on Feb. 12. Unknown gunmen shot and killed a judge and injured six of his family members on in the eastern province of Nangarhar, Ahmadzia Abdulzai, the provincial spokesman said. (Parwiz / Reuters) Back to slideshow navigation
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16-year-old Aatifa cries in Herat's main hospital on Feb. 5. Burned by a fire she began herself, Aatifa's childlike frame is painstakingly wrapped in thick bandages — her shrieks of "Allah" echoing around the hospital ward where surgeons prepare to graft skin back on to her skeletal torso. Her wide blue eyes alternating between flashes of anger and wells of tears, she struggles to explain what led her to douse her own body in petrol, step outside her marital compound and light a match. (Massoud Hossaini / AFP - Getty Images) Back to slideshow navigation
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An Afghan father and his son try to stay warm outside the mud hut where he and his wife live with their 11 children, as snow falls at the Charahi Qambar refugee camp in Kabul, Feb. 3. More than 40 people, most of them children, have frozen to death in what has been Afghanistan's coldest winter in years. (Andrea Bruce / The New York Times via Redux Pictures) Back to slideshow navigation
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Street scene after a snowstorm in Kabul on Jan. 23. (Musadeq Sadeq / AP) Back to slideshow navigation
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French soldiers carry a flag-draped coffin during a ceremony at the military airbase at Kaia on Jan. 22. Four French soldiers were killed and 17 wounded in an attack carried out by an Afghan soldier in the Taghab valley of Eastern Kapisa province. (Ghislain Mariette / ECPAD via Reuters) Back to slideshow navigation
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Members pray during the opening of a new session of the Afghan parliament in Kabul on Jan. 21. (Shah Marai / AFP - Getty Images) Back to slideshow navigation
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A U.S. soldier keeps watch at the site of an explosion in Kandahar on Jan. 19. A suicide bomber killed seven civilians, including two children, and wounded eight in an attack on the main gate of the Kandahar airfield, Kandahar governor's spokesman Zalmai Ayobi said. (Ahmad Nadeem / Reuters) Back to slideshow navigation
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Col. Din Mohammad, left, explains the instrument panel of a Soviet-made helicopter to a new cadre of Afghan pilots and air crews at the air force university in Kabul on Jan. 16. (Musadeq Sadeq / AP) Back to slideshow navigation
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Faizullah Zaki, seated left, a spokesman for former Northern Alliance general Abdul Rashid Dostum, speaks as prominent opposition leader Ahmad Zia Masood, center, and ethnic Hazara leader Mohammad Muhaqiq listen during a press conference at the airport in Kabul on Jan. 13. The opposition leaders said that they support possible U.S.-brokered peace negotiations with Taliban militants, but want to be part of any talks. (Musadeq Sadeq / AP) Back to slideshow navigation
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Relatives mourn at the hospital where victims of a suicide attack were brought for treatment in Kandahar on Jan. 12. (Allauddin Khan / AP) Back to slideshow navigation
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Editor's note:
This image contains graphic content that some viewers may find disturbing.Click to view the image, or use the buttons above to navigate away.
A still image taken Jan. 11 from an undated YouTube video shows what is believed to be U.S. Marines urinating on the bodies of dead Taliban soldiers in Afghanistan. (Reuters) Back to slideshow navigation -
An internally displaced boy looks out from a tent at a camp in Dihdadi district on the outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif on Jan. 8. (Qais Usyan / AFP - Getty Images) Back to slideshow navigation
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Girls play sitars at the Kabul Music Academy on Jan. 7. (Omar Sobhani / Reuters) Back to slideshow navigation
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A policeman inspects the scene of an explosion in Kandahar on Jan. 4. Nearly a dozen people were killed and at least 28 others were injured in two separate suicide bomb attacks in the city on Jan. 3. In the first attack, a suicide bomber detonated a tricycle in downtown Kandahar, killing four civilians and three policeman, police chief General Abdul Raziq said. (Jangir / AFP - Getty Images) Back to slideshow navigation
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Women clad in burqas walk past a tree in Bagram, north of Kabul, on Jan. 3. President Hamid Karzai called for a prison facility inside the U.S.-run Bagram Airfield to be handed over to Afghan control. (Ahmad Masood / Reuters) Back to slideshow navigation
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Above: Slideshow (54) Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads - 2012Mohammad Ismail / Reuters
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Slideshow (234) Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads - 2011Rahmat Gul / AP
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Slideshow (158) Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads - 2010Altaf Qadri / AP
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Slideshow (88) Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads - 2009: TroopsZohra Bensemra / Reuters
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Slideshow (31) Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads - 2009: CiviliansAhmad Masood / Reuters
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Slideshow (24) Inside AfghanistanS. Sabawoon / EPA
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Slideshow (88) On the front lines in Afghanistan - On the front linesZohra Bensemra / Reuters
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Slideshow (16) On the front lines in Afghanistan - Camp RestrepoDavid Guttenfelder / AP
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Slideshow (31) On the front lines in Afghanistan - Inside AfghanistanAhmad Masood / Reuters
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Slideshow (15) On the front lines in Afghanistan - Saving lives on the front lineErin Grace Trieb / PANOS
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Slideshow (12) Mission in AfghanistanSpencer Platt / Getty Images
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Slideshow (16) Camp RestrepoDavid Guttenfelder / AP
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