Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times
1st Lt. Jordan Ritenour drinks chai with Haji Beardad, left, and his brother Kharu Jan, center, in a pomegranate orchard under decades-old grape vines in Kuhat. Ritenour has built a relationship with Beardad, a village elder, in hopes of fostering greater cooperation with the local populace as the military tries to rid the area of Taliban influence. June 6, 2010
Members of the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division inspect a bomb from the year of the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in hopes of being able to remove it from a cemetery. The bomb, a longtime concern for local residents, was too big to be removed with the equipment they had, so the task was left to be done on another day. June 6, 2010
A girl steps into an alley to watch as an American patrol passes by her house, an occasion that usually draws the attention in the rural villages of Kandahar province. June 6, 2010
Staff Sgt. Christopher Nealis of the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division, yells for a soldier before heading out on patrol from their combat outpost in Kuhat, in Afghanistan's Kandahar province. June 6, 2010
Pfc. Preston Young immediately alerts the command post of a blast that hit his patrol as they walked down a dirt road that connects farmland in a rural area. Two soldiers from the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division were thrown to the ground in the incident, but they were not seriously injured. June 5, 2010
Lt. Jordan Ritenour and Pfc. Preston Young of the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division pause during a patrol through an area plagued by improvised explosive devices. June 5, 2010
U.S. Army Sgt. Robert Hernandez, 23, right, of Phoenix pauses between sets during a workout at Combat Outpost Winkleman. The base is one of several small ones in Kandahar province put in with the aim of quelling a Taliban uprising. June 4, 2010
U.S. Army Spc. Victor Smyrnow and Spc. Jacob Lind of the 82nd Airborne Divsion are framed by camouflage netting that helps obscure their position on top of a hill as they watch over the Arghandab Valley and their Observation Post Kuhat. Both the U.S. Army and the Afghan army man positions in this volatile area of Kandahar province. Shifts rotate every few days and the soldiers eat, sleep, pull overnight watch and occasionally take fire from the valley below. June 4, 2010
U.S. Army Spc. Jacob Lind watches over the Arghandab Valley at sunrise from a hilltop observation post. June 4, 2010
The village of Kuhat lies below the U.S. Army observation post above the Arghandab Valley. Residents were originally unhappy about the Army post but many have since warmed to the soldiers. June 4, 2010
U.S. Army sergeants Benjamin Salinas and Jacob Wells get some time for recreation at Combat Outpost Kuhat. June 4, 2010
Army Spc. Andrew Kimbell, 25, of the 82nd Airborne Division's 2nd Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, center, braces against a cloud of dust as a Chinook helicopter takes off after returning him to Forward Operating Base Jalawar after a 15-day r&r leave. Kimbell spent his leave in his hometown of Spencer, Iowa where he grew up. With him are Pfc. Ben Hoffmeister and Sgt. Benjamin Amato, who came to pick him up from the landing zone. The 82nd is deployed in Arghandab, a region of Kandahar plagued by Taliban insurgents. June 2, 2010
Afghan national police officers check their targets during shooting practice at Camp Nathan Smith in Kandahar, Afghanistan. May 27, 2010
The officers in this course train for 6 weeks and learn about firearms, criminal law, human rights and the Afghan Constitution. May 27, 2010
Afghan national police, in their 4th week of follow-up training, practice shooting their AK-47s on a firing range at Camp Nathan Smith in Kandahar, Afghanistan. May 27, 2010
Afghan national police, in their 4th week of follow-up training, drill during the early morning hours at Camp Nathan Smith in Kandahar, Afghanistan. May 27, 2010
U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Arnaldo Colon peers into the broken window of a car parked along the road with an Afghan sitting inside. Troops keep vigilant, given the consistent threat of car bombs. May 26, 2010
An Afghan national police officer showers and washes his uniform at the same time at a police substation in Kandahar. May 26, 2010
A Canadian armored personnel carrier leaves a police substation after conducting a patrol through the area. May 26, 2010
Canadian soldiers keep watch as a shepherd crosses a bridge in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan. U.S. and Afghan forces have stepped up operations in and around the city that is the spiritual capital of the Taliban movement. May 25, 2010
Afghan workers in Kandahar prepare a field for grapevines. Almost 1,000 civilians labor for roughly $6 a day as they participate in the USAID-led effort to revive the country's once-vibrant grape industry. May 25, 2010
An Afghan national police officer salutes from inside a fortified post on the western edge of Kandahar, a city in southern Afghanistan. A red-laced curtain hangs in the doorway to keep out flies and mosquitoes. May 24, 2010
Pockmarks from past battles are seen on walls in a neighborhood in western Kandahar. U.S. troops and Afghan forces have been heavily patrolling the city in an effort to root out Taliban militants. May 23, 2010
Kokaran village elders frustated with a raid carried out by coalition forces talk with U.S. military officials as well as Canadian and American civil affairs representatives. About a dozen elders were invited to the meeting after a May 22 sweep of a Kandahar district that is known to be a Taliban stronghold. May 23, 2010
An Afghan soldier shoulders a machine gun while on patrol with the Afghan national police and U.S. military police in Kokaran, a neighborhood in western Kandahar known for Taliban activity. May 23, 2010
An Afghan national police member jumps over an irrigation ditch while on patrol with U.S. Military Police in Kandahar's District 8. The goal of the operation is to clear out insurgents, build up local governance and bring in reconstruction projects. May 23, 2010
Mohammed Shah Farooqi, chief of the Criminal Investigation Division of the Afghan national police, exits one of several compounds searched during the sweep in Kandahar's District 8. May 23, 2010
Afghan and U.S. forces patrol a neighborhood in Kandahar's District 8. A U.S. government official said the May 22 sweep was "an early snapshot" of a planned summer campaign to control the Taliban stronghold. May 23, 2010
A Black Hawk lifts off from a NATO base in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, carrying a wounded U.S. soldier whose hand was crushed by an armored vehicle's heavy door during the sweep. May 23, 2010
An Afghan national police member smokes a cigarette before the start of the May 22 operation in western Kandahar's District 8. U.S. commanders say the Taliban exercises more autonomy in the district than anywhere in the city. May 23, 2010
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