Year of the Rabbit celebration's in Dublin, Ireland on January 29, 2023: Wang Zhi Ning during her Peking Opera Solo performance. (Photo by Nick Bradshaw/The Irish Times)

Fans of The Script as the band perform on the main stage on the third day of music at the Electric Picnic in Ireland on Sunday, September 3, 2023. (Photo by Alan Betson/The Irish Times)

Goodwood racegoers run for cover from a sudden rainstorm on Ladies Day, the third day of the horseracing festival at Goodwood Racecourse on July 31, 2025 in Chichester, England. (Photo by The Times)

Rays of the misty sunrise swathe Christ Church in the village of Brockham in Surrey, UK on September 29, 2025. Colder temperatures are expected in the early part of the day with mist and fog clearing later in the south. (Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/The Times)

A local resident stumbles as he wades through flood water on a residential street in Carlisle, Britain December 6, 2015. British police have declared a major incident in northern England after prolonged heavy rain caused widespread flooding and forced emergency services to evacuate residents from their homes. (Photo by Phil Noble/Reuters)

An actor plays an injured passer-by during Exercise Strong Tower, the scene of a mock terror attack at a disused underground station in central London, Britain June 30, 2015. London police held their biggest-ever terrorism drill on Tuesday, pitting the emergency services against a group of marauding attackers, nearly 10 years since four young British Islamists killed 52 people in suicide bombings on London's transport network in July 2005. (Photo by Peter Nicholls/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.

In this handout image provided by NASA, the space shuttle Endeavour is seen on launch pad 39a as a storm passes by prior to the rollback of the Rotating Service Structure (RSS) April 28, 2011, at Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. During the 14-day mission, Endeavour and the STS-134 crew will deliver the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer (AMS) and spare parts, including two S-band communications antennas, a high-pressure gas tank and additional spare parts for Dextre. Launch is targeted for April 29 at 3:47 p.m. EDT.