A female Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighter works on her laptop while watching a Kurdish TV station at a base in the Sinjar mountains, March 11, 2015. Women fighters at a Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) base on Mount Sinjar in northwest Iraq, just like their male counterparts, have to be ready for action at any time. Smoke from the front line, marking their battle against Islamic State, which launched an assault on northern Iraq last summer, is visible from the base. Many of the women have cut links with their families back home; the fighters come from all corners of the Kurdish region. (Photo by Asmaa Waguih/Reuters)

A man dressed as the “Star Wars” character Darth Vader sits on a bench in central Lviv, Ukraine, November 24, 2016. (Photo by Gleb Garanich/Reuters)

Klara Bleyer of Team Germany competes in the Artistic Swimming Women's Solo Technical Preliminaries on day one of the Fukuoka 2023 World Aquatics Championships at Marine Messe Fukuoka Hall A on July 14, 2023 in Fukuoka, Japan. (Photo by Marko Djurica/Reuters)

Kenyan riot police officers raise batons over a man during a demonstration of Kenya's opposition supporters in Nairobi, on May 16, 2016. Opposition protestors led by former Prime Minister Raila Odinga gathered outside the Indepedent Electoral and Boundaries Comission building to demand the dismissal of IEBC commissioners, after alleged bias towards the ruling Jubillee Alliance Party. (Photo by Carl De Souza/AFP Photo)

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.

Indian Muslim children hold anti-US placards as they participate in a protest meeting against the film “Innocence of Muslims” in Kolkata on October 5, 2012. A low-budget, US-produced “Innocence of Muslims” movie has incited a wave of bloody anti-US violence in Libya, Egypt, Sudan, Tunisia, Yemen and in several other countries across the Muslim world. (Photo by Dibyangshu Sarkar/AFP/AFP Photo)

Iraqi women cry over their brother's body, who was killed by a mortar shell fired by Islamic State (IS) group jihadists on civilians who were gathered to receive aid, in Al-Risala neighbourhood on March 22, 2017, as an ongoing offensive by Iraqi forces to retake the city from the group continues. Iraqi forces launched a major operation to recapture west Mosul – the most-populated urban area still held by IS – on February 19, and have retaken a series of neighbourhoods from the jihadists. (Photo by Ahmad Al-Rubaye/AFP Photo)

Drivers push cars to gas station during “oil crisis”, Roslindale, Boston, Massachusetts, 1973. (Photo by Spencer Grant/Getty Images)