A disinfection worker wearing protective gear sprays disinfectant to a medical worker after they perform swab tests for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) during mass test at Islamic boarding school of Sunan Pandanaran on July 29, 2020 in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Indonesia is struggling to contain hundreds of new daily cases of coronavirus amid easing of rules to allow economic activity to resume, has reported more than 100,000 coronavirus cases and with at least more 4,900 recorded fatalities. (Photo by Ulet Ifansasti/Getty Images)

A fan gestures next to a police officer while celebrating the life of British singer Keith Flint of techno group “The Prodigy” after his funeral in Braintree, Essex, Britain, March 29, 2019. (Photo by Henry 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.

A Sudanese man plays a local music instrument ahead of a meeting with Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, also known as Himediti, deputy head of Sudan's ruling Transitional Military Council (TMC) and commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) paramilitaries, in the capital Khartoum on June 18, 2019. (Photo by AFP Photo/Stringer)

Karsten Thielker, a Pulitzer Prize-winning German photographer with The Associated Press who covered human suffering in conflict zones around the globe, has died at the age of 54. Thielker died on October 3 in Berlin of esophageal cancer, his wife Janna Ressel said. Here: A wounded Russian soldier, who has been evacuated with his comrades, weeps in a helicopter on his way out of Grozny on Friday, February 3, 1995, as the fighting in the Chechen capital continues. The massive Russian force that invaded Chechnya has taken very heavy losses against a small but determined guerrilla force. (Photo by Karsten Thielker/AP Photo/File)

A man wearing the traditional Carnival Neapolitan mask of Pulcinella performs on Via Caracciolo avenue in Naples, Italy, Saturday, November 14, 2020. The regions of Campania and Tuscany were designated red zone on Friday, signaling the dire condition of a hospitals struggling with a surge of new admissions. (Photo by Gregorio Borgia/AP Photo)

Thousands of bright yellow silkworm cocoons are dried in huge clay bowls in the village of Hong Ly, northern Vietnam in July 2022. Silk fibres are produced by silkworms when they spin themselves into a cocoon on their journey to becoming a silkmoth. The ultra-soft fibres are harvested from the cocoon in their raw state by being boiled in hot water. (Photo by Prabu Mohan/Solent News)

Female police officers from Istanbul's Motorcycled Police Unit wait to search vehicles during a roadside checkpoint operation on March 7, 2017 in Istanbul, Turkey. The rapid response unit nicknamed Dolphins is used primarily in crime prevention operations and has 25 female officers. 6% of Turkey's 250,000 strong police force are women, March 8 marks International Women's Day. (Photo by Chris McGrath/Getty Images)