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One of the primary issues the New York Times photographer Tyler Hicks witnessed after arriving in Afghanistan in late 2001, quickly after U.S. airstrikes on Oct. 7 opened the invasion, was the execution of a wounded Taliban fighter. The scene shocked him, upending all the things he thought he knew about conflict and concerning the Afghan Northern Alliance — the U.S.-aligned fighters who had been his guides and protectors, and the Talib’s killers.
It was one fleeting episode in a fast collection of occasions that unfolded as Mr. Hicks accompanied Northern Alliance fighters, who quickly drove the Taliban from Kabul with the assistance of American airstrikes and Special Operations forces.
Mr. Hicks returned to Afghanistan greater than 30 instances over the subsequent 20 years, chronicling virtually each chapter of a conflict that dragged on almost 20 years. He photographed American troops in battle, the deaths of Afghan civilians in Taliban bombings, the disputed Afghan elections, schoolgirls attending courses, and the struggles of peculiar Afghans to outlive violence, starvation and a battle that usually appeared countless and intractable.
A conflict that started as a mission to punish Al Qaeda for the Sept. 11 terrorist assaults advanced into an exhausting combat in opposition to a decided Taliban insurgency amid a nation-building effort aimed toward reworking an impoverished, patriarchal nation burdened by a long time of battle. Mr. Hicks was drawn again to Afghanistan by the extraordinary private relationships he fashioned with the folks he labored with and by the nation’s uncooked magnificence. He turned invested within the nation and the battle — and was decided to observe the story wherever it led him.
A notably searing reminiscence for Mr. Hicks was witnessing the dying of an American soldier in 2009 within the Korengal Valley in japanese Afghanistan. The soldier was strolling on patrol in entrance of Mr. Hicks when he was killed by a roadside bomb throughout a Taliban ambush. Later, after Mr. Hicks despatched the household pictures of the soldier, the person’s stepmother instructed Mr. Hicks how grateful she was that he had survived the assault unhurt.
His most up-to-date project to Afghanistan, in July, introduced Mr. Hicks full circle. He discovered himself close to Bagram Air Base, the place he had photographed the Northern Alliance’s execution of the Taliban fighter almost 20 years earlier.
In 2001, Bagram was a wrecked former Soviet base that in the end turned the most important American air base in Afghanistan.
In July, the bottom was once more being deserted — this time by American forces, whose final flight departed at evening after the electrical energy had been minimize and the bottom had been left strewn with detritus from the fight mission. Mr. Hicks wandered the bottom alone, taking pictures and encountering an occasional Afghan authorities soldier shocked by the unannounced American exit.
The Bagram pictures had been among the many final Mr. Hicks took earlier than leaving Afghanistan simply earlier than the Taliban swept into Kabul in mid-August, ending the conflict and the expensive and conflicted American period.
Those pictures, together with different putting pictures taken over 20 years, are under:
INVASION, OCTOBER 2001
Northern Alliance fighters wanting right into a Taliban-controlled village from the frontline village of Ghorbond.
Northern Alliance fighters on a tank in Jabul Seraj.
Northern Alliance fighters inspecting the destroyed dwelling of a lady who was killed by an American bomb dropped on the Northern Alliance-controlled village of Ghani Khil.
THE ADVANCE, NOVEMBER 2001
Northern Alliance fighters cruise by means of Kabul, the capital, after assembly scant resistance as they entered the capital. Most of the Taliban had already fled south.
A Northern Alliance fighter who was shot within the chest taking his final breaths in Maidan Shar, 20 miles southwest of the capital.
A Northern Alliance fighter on the mountainous entrance line within the Salang Pass.
After he begs for his life, they shoot him within the chest.
The fighters haul the Talib’s physique away.
Thousands of American troopers broaden the Bagram base.
An Afghan soldier at a cave within the Tora Bora area, the place Osama bin Laden’s path runs chilly.
Women ready to vote at a mosque in Kabul.
Hamid Karzai wins the election with over 50 % of the vote.
Charlie Company was ambushed in a valley by the Taliban simply earlier than darkish whereas on patrol.
Charlie Company being picked up by helicopter on the completion of the two-week operation.
An Afghan National Police officer. The American authorities poured billions of {dollars} into coaching and equipping the Afghan safety forces.
A prayer earlier than a Thanksgiving meal for troopers of the 82nd Airborne.
THE CASTLE, 2008
Combat Outpost Lowell, an remoted American and Afghan base generally known as “the castle,” close to Kamu in Nuristan Province.
Medics work to save lots of the lifetime of an Afghan cook dinner who was wounded in an rebel mortar assault.
An Afghan National Army soldier being educated by American Marines throughout an rebel ambush close to Kamu.
KORENGAL, 2009
An American patrol within the Korengal Valley, a sanctuary for Taliban fighters.
An American soldier injured by a falling boulder throughout a patrol within the mountains of the Korengal.
Soldiers on the Korengal outpost throughout a memorial service for Pfc. Richard Dewater, 21, killed by a bomb whereas on patrol.
ELECTION, 2009
Afghans line as much as vote in Kabul within the presidential race, on a day of scattered assaults by the Taliban.
Mr. Karzai wins a second time period in 2009 after a contested and drawn-out election that deeply embittered his relations with the United States.
An injured man is rushed from exterior the NATO pressure’s headquarters and the Ministry of Transportation in Kabul after a automotive bomb exploded.
SURGE, 2010
American Special Forces troopers take a fatally wounded Afghan National Army soldier to a Black Hawk medevac helicopter in Kandahar Province.
Marines with Company Ok, Third Battalion, Sixth Marines, work to clear an space in Marja, Helmand Province, that had been a supply of ambushes.
Soldiers digging by means of the rubble after a bomb destroyed an outpost in Kandahar Province. Six Americans had been killed.
NEAR THE PAKISTAN BORDER, 2011
American troopers within the Charbaran Valley, an arid, high-elevation valley in Paktika Province that served as a transit space for militants who cross over from Pakistan.
A U.S. Army unit of the 77th Field Artillery fires a 105-millimeter artillery barrage towards a Taliban rocket place close to the Pakistan border.
Soldiers had been introduced in by helicopter to brush and search an space beneath management of the Haqqani community of the Taliban, within the hope of stopping extra assaults on Kabul.
THE AIR WAR, 2012
American F/A-18F Super Hornet strike fighters after takeoff from the plane provider John C. Stennis within the North Arabian Sea, en path to Kandahar Province for a fight mission.
On the flight deck of the Stennis.
An F/A-18F fighter refueling from a KC-10 over Kandahar Province.
AMERICAN DRAWDOWN, 2013
Afghan National Army troopers get better a automobile that was attacked and disabled turning a Taliban ambush in Sangin District, a hostile focus for the militant group in northern Helmand Province.
Afghan troopers pray in a makeshift mosque on the brigade headquarters in Sangin District.
A bullet-riddled guard publish on the Afghan National Army’s brigade headquarters in Sangin.
THE COLLAPSE, 2021
Militia fighters gathering in Mazar-i-Sharif in July to obtain directions to defend town in opposition to a Taliban assault. The metropolis, as soon as a stronghold of the Northern Alliance, was overrun by the Taliban only some weeks later.
Bagram Air Base was all however abandoned in July after the American departure from the bottom, as soon as dwelling to hundreds of troops.
A passenger awaiting safety clearance at a Herat checkpoint. The Taliban would quickly seize town, Afghanistan’s third-largest.
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