Iraqi security forces ride in vehicles travelling to Mosul to fight against militants of Islamic State at an Iraqi army base in Camp Taji in Baghdad, February 21, 2016. (Photo by Ahmed Saad/Reuters)

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.

“The 2008 Sichuan earthquake or the Great Sichuan Earthquake was a deadly earthquake that measured at 8.0 Ms and 7.9 Mw occurred at 14:28:01 CST (06:28 UTC) on Monday, May 12, 2008 in Sichuan province of China, killing an estimated 68,000 people”. – Wikipedia

Photo: A woman cries as she cannot find her 4-year-old daughter and husband on the top of the ruins of a destroyed school in earthquake-hit Beichuan county, Sichuan province, May 17, 2008. (Photo by Jason Lee/Reuters)

Old Heidelberg, Dog with Pipe, 1905. (Photo by Detroit Publishing Company)

A wild golden jackals (Canis aureus) mother and her cub entered a house for food at noon. The baby was curiously sniffing all things beside him trying to enter the room of the house and her mother immediately roared and warned her. This photo was taken ahead of the International Day for Biological Diversity 2022 at Tehatta, West Bengal, India on May 21, 2022. (Photo by Soumyabrata Roy/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Rescuers work to put out fire outside a damaged residential building hit by recent shelling in the course of Russia-Ukraine conflict in Donetsk, Russian-controlled Ukraine on November 7, 2023. (Photo by Reuters/Stringer)

Artem, a serviceman of infantry battalion of the 61st mechanised brigade, pets a dog in a trench at a position near the frontline, in Kharkiv region, Ukraine on January 6, 2024. (Photo by Sofiia Gatilova/Reuters)

An Iraqi camel herder poses in the desert of Samawa in Iraq's southern province of al-Muthanna on January 27, 2024. (Photo by Hussein Faleh/AFP Photo)