An aide to Afghan President Hamid Karzai closes the door to Karzais private offices at the presidential palace compound in Kabul, the capital. (Rick Loomis / LAT)
Karzai addresses a staff member during a typically busy day at the compound, where he lives as well as works. (Rick Loomis / LAT)
A handful of aides stand at the ready while Karzai talks by phone with the governor of Kandahar province. (Rick Loomis / LAT)
A guard keeps watch at the entrance to Karzais offices. Getting into the presidential compound is no easy feat. (Rick Loomis / LAT)
Guards flank a door at the presidential compound. Karzai rarely leaves Kabul now that the countrys security situation has deteriorated. (Rick Loomis / LAT)
Karzai addresses a delegation that came to voice its side of a land dispute during a luncheon at the presidential compound. (Rick Loomis / LAT)
Delegation members listen to Karzai, who, like Afghan kings of old, makes hearing tribal quarrels part of his daily routine. (Rick Loomis / LAT)
Tribal elder Mohammed Nabi Tokhi pleads his case to Karzai on the palace grounds. (Rick Loomis / LAT)
Protesters involved in a land dispute demonstrate outside the palace complex. (Rick Loomis / LAT)
Ramazan Bashar Dost, a member of parliament, meets with constituents almost every day in this tent set up in a Kabul park. (Rick Loomis / LAT)
Bashar Dost, second from left, inside his grievance tent. He resigned from Karzai’s Cabinet in a dispute over how to deal with allegedly corrupt nongovernmental organizations. (Rick Loomis / LAT)
Bashar Dost, one of Afghanistan’s most popular politicians, waits inside parliament for a session to begin. (Rick Loomis / LAT)
President Karzai greets tribal elders during their luncheon visit to the palace. (Rick Loomis / LAT)
