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 A watchtower guarding a street of foreign embassies in central Kabul. For the British army these improvised fortifications are called ‘sangars’, although the term is Dari for ‘barricade’ and is one of the few words the British brought home form the Anglo- 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 Historically, Kuchis were strongly pro-Taliban; feelings made more intense by being bombed by NATO off their traditional grazing lands in Helmand. They are allowed to set up camp here on Kabul’s periphery only because it is below a large, new Afghan Army Simon Norfolk 2011 A view of Kabul city centre from Bala Burj. Simon Norfolk 2011 A de-mining team from the Mine Detection Centre in Kabul with a member of the German Police who is mentoring them. Simon Norfolk 2011 Young women in the indoor skatepark of the NGO ‘Skateistan’, set up by American volunteers to help young Afghans improve their skateboarding and indoor rock-climbing skills. Simon Norfolk 2011 Strongly pro-Taliban refugees. For the photograph, they chose to partially cover their faces. Simon Norfolk 2011 The Afghan Women’s National Basketball squad. Simon Norfolk 2011 A storage yard at Kandahar Air Field looking out beyond the wire, back into ‘Afghanistan’. 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