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May 31, 2010 |
Afghanistan, May, 2010
Today is Memorial Day in the United States, a day set aside to honor our men and women who died while in military service since the time of U.S. Civil War. In Afghanistan over 50 U.S. soldiers have been killed in just the past month, including 24-year old Marine Cpl. Jacob Leicht, who became the 1,000th serviceman killed in Afghanistan since 2002. As the fighting season begins, Taliban militants have recently mounted several bold attacks and coalition efforts to "clear, hold and build" areas in the south have been slowed during the "hold" phase, as Afghan government capacity remains small. Collected here are images of the country and conflict over the past month, part of an ongoing monthly series on Afghanistan. (42 photos total)

Afghan boys take part in a wrestling training session for boys between the ages of ten and twenty years old, at the national olympic headquarters in Kabul on May 11, 2010. Afghanistan has a strong wrestling tradition, despite being ravaged by war and conflict throughout the past decade. (MAURICIO LIMA/AFP/Getty Images) #

U.S. Army specialist Carlo Scott from Morgenville NJ with the 1st platoon, 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 82nd Airborne Division, walks through a field by the Arghandab river during a security operation in Kandahar province, southern Afghanistan, May 11, 2010. (REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis) #

A flag-draped casket carrying U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Patrick Xavier Jr.'s body sits in a hearse as U.S. Marine pallbearers prepare to take it into the St. David's Catholic Church for a funeral service on May 29, 2010 in Davie, Florida. Patrick Xavier Jr. was killed May 18th during a "hostile incident" in the Helmand province region of Afghanistan. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) #

In this photo taken May 20, 2010, U.S. Army Stryker vehicles kick up dust as they roll across a rocky road to pick up troops from Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment of the 5th Stryker Brigade who were on patrol in the Shah Wali Kot district of Afghanistan's Kandahar province. The Battalion lost 22 men during its 12-month deployment which ends this summer. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson) #

A Kuchi tribal girl urges a camel to hasten on its way towards their tent as the sun sets on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, May 23, 2010. As Afghanistan's population grows, competing claims over summer pastures, both for rainfed cultivation and for grazing of the settled communities' livestock, have created conflict over land across central and northern Afghanistan and made life more difficult for this nomadic tribe. (AP Photo/Saurabh Das) #

An Afghan teacher (center) talks with a schoolgirl in the central yard of their school, on the southeastern outskirts of Kabul, on May 13, 2010. The United Nations said it was investigating the cause of an apparent illness among Afghan schoolgirls as the president ordered steps to combat what he said could be poisoned gas attacks. (MAURICIO LIMA/AFP/Getty Images) #

Members of the Afghanistan women's national boxing team take part in a training session on May 3, 2010 in Kabul, Afghanistan. After facing years of restrictions and oppression during the period of Taliban rule, Afghan women are again able to make use of sports clubs and private gyms and the national boxing team have sets their sights on competing at the London 2012 Olympics. (Majid Saeedi/Getty Images) #

U.S. Army Sgt. Mark Aggers puts a knife in his mouth as he prepares to crawl into and investigate a cave found while patrolling with 2nd Platoon, Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment of the 5th Stryker Brigade Sunday, May 16, 2010, in Afghanistan's Kandahar province. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson) #

A U.S. Marine from Lima Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines checks the body of a man who was shot by the Marines after pointing his weapon at them, while the Marines were fighting the Taliban in Karez-e-Sayyidi in the outskirts of Marjah district, Helmand province, May 5, 2010. (REUTERS/Asmaa Waguih) #

An Italian soldier grieves for a fallen comrade, as his coffin is loaded on a plane to be flown back to Italy, at a military base in Herat, Afghanistan, Tuesday May 18, 2010. Two Italian soldiers were killed and two others were seriously injured on Monday when a bomb hit a NATO military convoy in northwestern Afghanistan. (AP Photo/ Reza Sher Mohammadi) #

A Pakistani security official stands near a burning vehicle after it was attacked in Chaman in Pakistan's Balochistan province, along the Afghan border on May 19, 2010. Suspected Taliban militants set fire to the truck which was carrying supplies for Western forces in neighbouring Afghanistan, in the Pakistani border town of Chaman, no casualty was reported, police said. (REUTERS/Saeed Ali Achakzai) #

Afghan boys, considered to be fighting age, lift up their shirts for U.S. Army soldiers to see that they are unarmed after being summoned to come forward from a tree line by a patrol from 2nd Platoon, Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment of the 5th Stryker Brigade in Afghanistan's Kandahar province on May 8, 2010. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson) #

A U.S. Marine firing party fires three volleys during a funeral service for U.S. Marine Cpl. Nicolas Paradarodriguez at Arlington Cemetery on May 27, 2010 in Arlington, Virginia. Cpl. Paradarodriguez of Stafford, Virginia was killed while supporting combat operations in the Helmut Province of Afghanistan. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images) #

Elizabeth Barolette holds an American flag given to her during a burial ceremony to honor her son U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Patrick Xavier Jr. at the South Florida National Cemetery on May 29, 2010 in Lake Worth, Florida. Patrick Xavier Jr. was killed May 18th in the Helmand province region of Afghanistan. His brother Chad Xavier and fiance Ammani Shashee are seated with his mother. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images) #

Pakistani paramilitary soldiers remove the charred body of a blast victim beside a burning NATO supply oil tanker following a bomb explosion at the border town of Chaman on May 12, 2010. Two people were killed in Pakistan on May 12 when a bomb exploded in a tanker carrying fuel for NATO troops in neighbouring Afghanistan, a military spokesman said. (ASGHAR ACHAKZAI/AFP/Getty Images) #

The chapped hands of an Afghan child, at the Sadat Ltd. Brick factory, where some children work from 8am to 5 pm daily, seen on May 14, 2010 in Kabul, Afghanistan. Child labour is common at the brick factories where the parents work as labourers, desperate to make more money enlisting their children to help doing the easy jobs. Workers can make an average of USD 200 to 300 per month. (Majid Saeedi/Getty Images) #

Residents of a village near Kunduz walk past a soldier of the German Bundeswehr securing a road on May 25, 2010. The German contingent in Afghanistan, based mostly in the north of the unstable country, is the third largest after those of the United States and Britain. (AXEL SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images) #

Ten-year old Afghan youth Agha Gul poses for a portrait at the end of his duty around a bazaar area just outside a US Marines combat outpost, in Marjah, Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, on April 11, 2010. Since the end of US Marines-led biggest offensive against the Taliban in more than nine years of war, some 50 village children between the ages of three and twelve have been taking part in a US Marines development program called The Commander's Emergency Program Response (CERP), which was set up to provide funds for necessary repairs resulting from combat activity. The program conducts large-scale civic cleaning that employs as many local inhabitants as possible. Children are designated to dig holes where rubbish which they have picked up is burned and also to take part in the building and repair of walls. US Marines pay a thousand Afghanis (USD 5) per child for a working week of four eight hour days. Many of the families of those children employed have been threatened by Taliban insurgents as Marjah has been without school since early 80's. (MAURICIO LIMA/AFP/Getty Images) #

An Afghan hospital worker takes a weapon out of a car that belonged to a Taliban militant whose body is seen in a car after he was killed in Ghazni province May 24, 2010. Foreign and Afghan forces killed 13 Taliban in an attack involving an air strike on Monday in an area of Ghazni province, an official said. The attack was staged in response to a Taliban ambush against a convoy carrying supplies for the foreign forces, he said, adding there were no casualties from the ambush. (REUTERS/Mustafa Andalib) #

U.S. Army Spc. Christopher Sheffield, of Boise, Idaho, rests his head on the butt of his rifle while riding in a Stryker on his way to a patrol with Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment of the 5th Stryker Brigade, in Kandahar province on May 20, 2010. Sheffield wears a rememberance bracelet bearing the name of his friend, Pfc. Jonathan C. Yanney, who was killed last August when he stepped on an IED while on patrol with Bravo Company in the Arghandab valley. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson) #

Jonathan Leicht (left) and Jesse Leicht pose with a photo of their brother, Marine Cpl. Jacob Leicht, on Saturday, May 29, 2010, in Kerrville, Texas. Cpl. Leicht, 24, was killed while on patrol in Afghanistan on Thursday, May 27, 2010, making him the 1,000th U.S. serviceman killed in the Afghan conflict. (AP Photo/Eric Gay) #

Cpl. Justin Sexton of Grove City, Ohio says goodbye to his wife, Danielle Sexton, in the parking lot at Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base in Columbus, Ohio on May 11, 2010. An Ohio Marine Reserve unit devastated by losses in Iraq in 2005 has left for its first large-scale deployment since returning from that ill-fated mission. Members of Columbus-based Lima Company are scheduled to depart from the city's Rickenbacker International Airport on Wednesday on a yearlong assignment that could include time in Afghanistan and the Horn of Africa. (AP Photo/The Columbus Dispatch, Eric Albrecht) #
More links and information
U.S. Tries to Reintegrate Taliban Soldiers - NYTimes.com, 5/23
Through Soldiers' Eyes, 'The First YouTube War' - NYTimes.com, 5/23
Child Brides Escape Marriage, but Not Lashes - NYTimes.com, 5/30