This photo taken on November 7, 2021 shows a panda falling from a platform as it plays in its enclosure after snowfall in Xian in China's northern Shaanxi province. (Photo by AFP Photo/China Stringer Network)

This picture taken on June 18, 2025 shows a woman posing for a picture next to the character Mokoko as she visits Pop Mart's theme park Pop Land in Beijing. (Photo by Pedro Pardo/AFP Photo)

A painting of a Trabant car bursting through a wall in post unification Berlin, August 1993. (Photo by Steve Eason/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

A truck carrying gold miners across the Sahara desert to far northern Niger drives outside Agadez, Niger, May 9, 2016. (Photo by Joe Penney/Reuters)

Models present creations by designer Olivier Rousteing as part of his Spring-Summer 2023 ready-to-wear collection show for fashion house Balmain during Paris Fashion Week in Paris, France on September 28, 2022. (Photo by Johanna Geron/Reuters)

NASA's DHC-3 Otter plane flies in Operation IceBridge-Alaska surveys of mountain glaciers in Alaska in this image released on September 18, 2014. Over the past few decades, average global temperatures have been on the rise, and this warming is happening two to three times faster in the Arctic. (Photo by Chris Larsen/Reuters/NASA/University of Alaska-Fairbanks)

Throughout the course of the long war in Afghanistan, Coalition troops have relied on thousands of military working dogs to help keep them safe, and make their jobs easier. The dogs are trained to detect explosives, to find illegal drugs, to search for missing comrades, or target enemy combatants. Not only are they active on the front lines, but behind the lines they serve as therapy dogs, service dogs, and loyal companions. They also share the same risks as the ground troops, suffering injuries and sometimes death on the battlefields. Gathered here are images of these dogs and their handlers in Afghanistan and back home, from over the past several years, part of the ongoing series here on Afghanistan.

In this picture taken on November 28, 2016, a hot-air balloon carrying tourists sails over the archeological site at sunrise in Bagan. Located in central Myanmar, Bagan is home to more than 2,000 ancient Buddhist monuments deeply revered in the Buddhist-majority nation and is one of the country's most popular tourist destinations. (Photo by Dale De La Rey/AFP Photo)