Members of Germany's elite police unit, the Spezialeinsatzkommando, or SEK, demonstrate an abseil deployment from a helicopter during a media event on March 20, 2012 in Minden, Germany. The SEK is the special response team of Germany's state police force and typically deploys in high-risk situations, such as bank robberies, hostage takings and the arrest of armed and dangerous fugitives. (Photo by Thomas Starke/Getty Images)

In this September 11, 2014 photo, villagers climb down the side of a hill used earlier as a dumping ground of asbestos waste on Roro hills in Roro, India. An asbestos mine, abandoned nearly three decades ago still affects the people around it and 18 along with Jema were diagnosed with asbestosis in 2012. Tens of thousands more, some former mine workers, remain untested and at risk. (Photo by Saurabh Das/AP Photo)

A picture released by the Italian Carabinieri on 03 July 2014 shows Carabinieri divers inspecting the inside of the Costa Concordia cruise ship, at Giglio Island, Italy, in 2012. The Costa Concordia hit a reef and partly capsized on 13 January 2012, after being steered dangerously close to Giglio, in an alleged stunt by captain Francesco Schettino. Thirty-two of the 4,229 people onboard were killed. (Photo by EPA/Carabinieri Press Office)

A ship on fire is picture during the parade of members of the Up Helly Aa “Jarl Squad” through the streets of in Lerwick, Shetland Islands on January 30, 2024 during the Up Helly Aa festival later in the day. Up Helly Aa celebrates the influence of the Scandinavian Vikings in the Shetland Islands and culminates with up to 1,000 “guizers” (men in costume) throwing flaming torches into their Viking longboat and setting it alight later in the evening. (Photo by Andy Buchanan/AFP Photo)

Elizabeth Nicolaou, a final year student with the Royal Academy of Dance, strikes a pose on April 28, 2022 near the Cutty Sark ship in Greenwich, London ahead of International Dance Day. First celebrated in 1982, International Dance Day has taken place every year since in anniversary celebration of the birth of Jean-Georges Noverre (1727-1810), considered the creator of modern ballet. (Photo by Guy Corbishley/Alamy Live News)

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.

Graffiti is painted on the bathroom walls at a restaurant in the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn borough in New York, United States, October 1, 2015. Some 2.4 billion people around the world don't have access to decent sanitation and more than a billion are forced to defecate in the open, risking disease and other dangers, according to the United Nations. To mark World Toilet Day on November 19, Reuters photographers captured pictures of toilets in cities, towns and villages around the globe. (Photo by Shannon Stapleton/Reuters)