Photos: Afghan farmer

U.S. Army Spc. Phillip Singleton, right, hands out toys to children during a KLE, or key leader engagement, with the village elder in Kuhat.  (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.  (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

A boy jokingly sticks his tongue out at U.S. Army Spec. Phillip Singleton, second from left, as he walks with other soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division through the village of Kuhat. Singleton frequently walks the village and had befriended the boy.  (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

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.  (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

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.  (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Dried blood on facial lacerations can be seen on Sadullah, 50. He was riding in a shared taxi when he was injured by a roadside bomb. Three men and two children were killed. Sadullah came to the U.S. base in Kuhat afterward to be checked out by a medic.  (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

Sadullah is treated by U.S. Army Spec. Phillip Singleton. Sadullah was in the taxi on his way to the district governor’s office to plea for the release of his son who was arrested a week earlier on suspicion of working with the Taliban.  (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

U.S. Air Force Senior Airman Matt Miller, 23, of Harrison, Mich., shoots over the top of another player during a game of 21 at Combat Outpost Winkleman in the Arghandab Valley, Afghanistan. Miller works as a joint tactical air controller.  (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)

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.  (Rick Loomis / Los Angeles Times)