You might like Left Right Shah-do-Shamshira Mosque is known as the Mosque of the King with Two Swords. It was built in the 1920s on the order of King Amanullah’s mother on the site of one of Kabul’s first mosques named in honour of an early Muslim king who died fighting Hindu inva Simon Norfolk 2011 The future home of the Afghan Cash and Carry Superstore on the road between the foreign embassies and Kabul airport. Simon Norfolk 2011 The former home of Jangalak Industries, a metalworking factory that once had a workforce of 1,800 but was wrecked during the civil war in the 1990s. It is now used as a massive storage yard for scrap metal. This area is all discarded hospital beds and sch Simon Norfolk 2011 Wasteland at the back of shops used as stabling for draught horses. In the distance is the Bala Hissar citadel, now home to an Afghan army base and mooring for one of the American blimps that carry electronic surveillance gear and cameras. Simon Norfolk 2011 Jaw Aka Faisal Nahman and his daughter Nono from Bamiyan province, now living in an improvised plastic shelter in the ruined gardens of Darulaman Palace. Built in the 1920s to house an Afghan parliament, ‘Darul Aman’ translates as ‘abode of peace’. Simon Norfolk 2011 The swimming pool that crowns Tepe Wazir Akhbar Khan, built by the Soviets in the 1970s and restored in recent times at great expense by USAID. It is uncertain if it will ever be used. Simon Norfolk 2011 A dumping ground for an abandoned Russian-era bomber that has now been incorporated into the car park of ‘Shamshad TV’, a new media company supported heavily by American money. Simon Norfolk 2011 At a music school on Kabul, boys are taught the traditional Afghan instrument the rubab. Difficult to play, it is a skill which nearly became extinct due to the Taliban prohibition on secular music. Simon Norfolk 2011 Watchtowers on the perimeter of Camp Bastion. Simon Norfolk 2011 A shaded rest area built by helicoptor re-fuelling crews at Camp Bastion. Simon Norfolk 2011 At Waisalabad high above West Kabul. It has taken 26 men from the Mine Detection Centre and four de-mining dogs more than three months to clear mines from an area the size of a few soccer pitches. Kabul’s rapid expansion has increased pressure for buildin Simon Norfolk 2011 There are 16,000 US Marines aboard Camp Leatherneck spread over 1,600 acres. Empty shipping containers are used as storage, wind breaks or blast walls. In May 2010 a mysterious fire, that may have been sabotage, destroyed 9 acres of containers. It burned Simon Norfolk 2011