Afghanistan, April 2011

Life expectancy in Afghanistan is but 45 years. It has the world's second-highest infant mortality rate. Only 12% of Afghan women are literate. It is the world's largest producer of opium. Soon it will have been occupied by foreign militaries for ten years, which followed years of Taliban rule, which followed years of civil war, which followed years of Soviet military occupation. Widespread corruption mutes hopes for the immediate future. The death of Osama bin Laden further clouds future American involvement in the country. Gathered here in our monthly collection of photographs from Afghanistan are images of the U.S. military mission, the toll of violence on civilians, and daily life in the country of just under 30 million. -- Lane Turner (36 photos total)

An Afghan man and children gather around a fire in a hillside neighborhood in Kabul April 7. (Hossein Fatemi/AP)

An Afghan girl juggles tennis balls during the World Circus Day organized by Afghan Educational Children Circus and Mobile Mini Circus for Children in Kabul April 16. (Hossein Fatemi/AP) #

An Afghan girl practices the martial arts with a sword at a Wushu training club in Injil, Herat province, west of Kabul, April 6. (AP) #

Anousheh (left) and Parisa look at a piece of semi-precious stone polished and presented at their workshop in the "Bagh e Zananeh" Women's Garden in Kabul April 26. Twelve students study at this jewelery workshop and about 700 women attend other classes in the Women's Garden every day. (Kamran Jebreili/AP) #

An Afghan nursing student from the military institute pauses during a class led by American teachers at the Davoud Khan military hospital on April 23 in Kabul. American medics have travelled to Afghanistan to help train 600 nursing students. (Majid Saeedi/Getty Images) #

Abida 25, an Afghan land mine victim who works at the International Committee of the Red Cross orthopedic rehabilitation center, poses for a picture at her work area in Kabul on March 19. The center, which is run mostly by disabled people, aims to educate and rehabilitate land mine victims and other disabled people, and help them integrate effectively into society. (Ahmad Masood/Reuters) #

An Afghan refugee girl waits for a truck before departing for Afghanistan at a UNHCR repatriation terminal in Peshawar, Pakistan April 19. A total of 1,757 Afghan refugees were repatriated in March as part of the ongoing voluntary repatriation program. (Mohammad Sajjad/AP) #

A young Afghan girl stands outside her house in the town of Musa Qala in Helmand province on April 9. (Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images) #

Afghan children play on an amusement ride in Kabul April 17. (Denis Sinyakov/Reuters) #

Afghan soldiers and local boys swim in a canal outside Combat Outpost Nolen in the Arghandab Valley north of Kandahar April 13. (Bob Strong/Reuters) #

A boy watches as a U.S. Army patrol walks past near Strongpoint Manley in Arghandab Valley, north of Kandahar, April 12. (Bob Strong/Reuters) #

An Afghan tea maker yawns as he waits for customers in Kabul April 17. (Musadeq Sadeq/AP) #

An Afghan soldier prepares to serve kabobs to U.S. Army soldiers during a group lunch at Combat Outpost Nolen in the Arghandab Valley north of Kandahar April 16. (Bob Strong/Reuters) #

An Afghan man makes traditional bread in the town of Musa Qala in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan on April 9. (Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images) #

An Afghan man and woman cycle past the remains of the Darul Aman royal Palace in Kabul April 12. (Kamran Jebreili/AP) #

An Afghan horseman holds a goat during a game of buzkashi, Afghanistan's national sport, in the private grounds of First Vice President Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim, in Kabul on April 15. (Kamran Jebreili/AP) #

Captain Elizabeth Jackson from the U.S. 3rd Battalion 2nd Marine Regimental Combat Team 8 watches an Afghan boy on a swing near the town of Musa Qala in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan on April 12. (Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images) #

US Marines Andrew Balcunas (right) and William Kloth (middle), along with Afghan national police, talk to a villager during a joint patrol in Habibullah village in Khanashin District, Helmand province, on April 24. (Bay Ismoyo/AFP/Getty Images) #

Village elder Haji Amir Mohammad Agha presents a rose to U.S. Army Spc Charli Johnson during a visit by Afghan and U.S. soldiers in Jelawar in the Arghandab Valley north of Kandahar April 18. (Bob Strong/Reuters) #

US Marine TJ Ruyle walks through an opium poppy field at Maranjan village in Helmand province on April 25 as he patrols with his team and the Afghanistan National Police. Nearly a decade into the war in Afghanistan, opium poppies are still the major crop for many farmers and a big source of income for the Taliban. (Bay Ismoyo/AFP/Getty Images) #

A U.S. Army soldier walks through water after a flash flood swept through Combat Outpost Terra Nova following heavy rains in the Arghandab Valley north of Kandahar April 16. (Bob Strong/Reuters) #

A U.S. Army pilot from "Dustoff" team, C Company, 1-214 Aviation Regiment, 101st Combat Aviation Brigade runs for cover from a sandstorm at Camp Dwyer in Helmand province April 12. (Denis Sinyakov/Reuters) #

A U.S. marine mans the controls during the refuelling of a Medevac helicopter at Camp Dwyer in Helmand province April 5. (Denis Sinyakov/Reuters) #

Saeed Sarwar (left) buys a Pakistani-made gun for about $110 to protect his family and home from attack by drug addicts in the "Ghala Now" suburb in Kabul on April 12. (Kamran Jebreili/AP) #

An Afghan policeman looks at the opening of a tunnel in the main prison in Kandahar April 25. Taliban insurgents tunneled more than 1,050 feet into the jail and whisked out more than 450 prisoners, most of whom were Taliban fighters. (Allauddin Khan/AP) #

An Afghan policeman leads a fireman away from a burning NATO fuel tanker on the Jalalabad-Kabul highway, east of Kabul, on April 27. A bomb planted beneath the tanker exploded without casualties. (Rahmat Gul/AP) #

Army Sgt. Jesse Rosenfield, U.S. flight medic with Task Force Thunder Brigade, Charlie company 1st of the 52nd Aviation regiment from Fairbanks, Alaska tries to save the life of an Afghan man who is a double amputee victim from an improvised explosive device, on board a helicopter April 25 in the Arghandab river valley in Kandahar province. (Paula Bronstein/Getty Images) #

A relative comforts a wounded child lying beside a wounded woman at the hospital in Ghazni, west of Kabul, April 21. Two Afghan men were killed and four other people - three women and a child - were wounded when their van struck a roadside mine in Dih Yak district of Ghazni province. (Rahmatullah Nikzad/AP) #

Staff Sgt. Jeffery Presley and Afghan medical personnel carry a twelve-year old boy out of Zabul Provincial Hospital on April 23 in Qalat. The boy, along with a man and another boy, arrived at the hospital after an explosion in the district of Mizan. (Brian Ferguson/U.S. Air Force via Getty Images) #

A wounded Afghan man lies on a hospital bed after a violent protest in Charikar, north of Kabul, April 18. Three people were killed and at least 25 wounded when a protest over the detention of a cleric by foreign troops turned violent in normally-peaceful northern Parwan province. (Ahmad Masood/Reuters) #

U.S. Army medic SFC Richard Jarett (right) and chief crew SPC Torrell Bryant, from "Dustoff" team, C Company, 1-214 Aviation Regiment, 101st Combat Aviation Brigade treat a member of the Afghan National Police with a gunshot wound in the leg aboard a helicopter in Helmand province April 5. (Denis Sinyakov/Reuters) #

Sgt. 1st Class Chester Mingledorff gets hugs from his granddaughters, Ashlynn Kincaid and Sophia Rawlings (left) during a deployment ceremony for the 201st Regional Support Group Agri-Business Development Team at Fort Gordon April 22 in Augusta, Ga. (Rainier Ehrhardt/The Augusta Chronicle/AP) #

Nikolous Poulin, 5, sits in the lap of his aunt Jennifer Poulin while holding an American flag presented to him at the funeral of his father, National Guard Spc. Dennis Poulin, at Saint Ann's Cemetery in Cranston, R.I. April 14. Poulin died March 31 of injuries he received when his armored vehicle rolled over in Afghanistan. (Steven Senne/AP) #

SFC Priscilla Jones (right) and SPC Jennifer Andersson, from the 159th Combat Aviation Brigade in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, point to their new Combat Patches after a ceremony to honor their first combat experience, at Kandahar Airfield April 1. (Denis Sinyakov/Reuters) #

U.S. soldiers from the 234th Infantry Division in Fort Riley, Kansas travel to Afghanistan April 15. (Vyaceslav Oseledko/AFP/Getty Images) #

A Marine carry team carries the transfer case containing the remains of Marine Staff Sgt. Jason A. Rogers of Jackson, Miss., upon arrival at Dover Air Force Base, Del. on April 9. (Jose Luis Magana/AP) #

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