A severely wounded US Marine hit by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) is carried by his comrades to a medevac helicopter of U.S. Army's Task Force Lift "Dust Off", Charlie Company 1-171 Aviation Regiment to be airlifted in Helmand province, on October 31, 2011. The Marine was hit by an IED, lost both his legs and fights for his life. #

U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Peter Jensen, a loadmaster assigned to the 816th Expeditionary Airlift Squadron, collects straps that restrained airdrop bundles in the back of a C-17 Globemaster III, September 30, 2011. Jensen and the crew of the C-17 air dropped 40 bundles to a remote outpost in Afghanistan. #

U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Stuart Wylie of South Weber, Utah, who is with an explosive ordnance disposal unit attached to Task Force Maverick, 1st Cavalry Division, awakens after a cold, rainy night sleeping next to his mine resistant ambush protected vehicle on Combat Outpost Red Hill, on October 12, 2011. #

Afghan women carry banners, one reads: "Down with the occupying forces and their supporters" during an anti-U.S. rally organized by the "Afghanistan Hambastegi" party in Kabul, Afghanistan, on October 6, 2011. #

An Air Force officer watches as the transfer case containing the remains of Army Spc. Michael Elm, 25, of Phoenix, Arizona, moves across the tarmac in a Transfer Vehicle at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware, on October 20, 2011. The Department of Defense announced that Elm died October 14 in Khowst, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device. #

Transfer cases containing the remains of Army Captain Drew E. Russell (right case) and Army Spc. Ricardo Cerros Jr., sit on a loader during a prayer Monday, October 10, 2011 at Dover Air Force Base, Delaware. According to the Department of Defense, Russell, 25, of Scotts, Michigan, died October 8, 2011 in Kandahar province, Afghanistan of wounds sustained when enemy forces attacked his unit with a rocket propelled grenade. #

In the home of Captain Drew E. Russel's parents, Jim and Patti Russell, in Scotts, Michigan, family snapshots of Drew are displayed on October 10, 2011. Captain Russell, a 25-year-old Army captain from southwestern Michigan whose boyhood maneuvers with toy soldiers were more like training than play and who was planning a military career was killed along with a comrade from Tennessee when Afghan insurgents attacked their unit with a rocket propelled grenade, his family and the military said. #

Members of a combined Afghan and coalition security force maintain security during an operation in search of a Haqqani network facilitator in Sarobi district, Paktiya province. The facilitator provided safe havens, money and supplies to network leaders throughout the region. #

An Afghan policeman holds his cap as a U.S. helicopter prepares to land at the site of a suicide attack in Kabul October 29, 2011. At least four people were killed when a suicide car bomber attacked a convoy of foreign soldiers in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Saturday, officials said, with an unspecified number of NATO-led troops among other casualties. #

U.S. Air Force Master Sgt. Brenda Laun (left), Forward Operating Base Smart mayor, holds an Afghan patient's hand during emergency medical treatment at Forward Operating Base Smart, Afghanistan, on October 12, 2011. PRT Zabul's medical team assists Zabul Provincial Hospital in patient treatment to prevent to loss of life, limb or eyesight. #

U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Patrick Reynolds, Security Forces squad leader attached to Provincial Reconstruction Team Zabul, fights racing water while holding onto a tow strap attached to an Afghan National Army vehicle stuck in the Lurah River in Shinkai district, Afghanistan, on October 12, 2011. Reynolds is deployed from Charlie Company, 182nd Infantry Division, Massachusetts National Guard. #

An Afghan rock musician performs in front of a cheering crowd during Sound Central, a one-day "stealth festival" in Kabul October 1, 2011. Sound Central, the one-day "stealth festival" that organizers hope will draw 1,000 to 2,000 young Afghans, is the first music festival the country has seen since it plunged into three decades of violence in the late 1970s. In a country where music was banned for years under the austere Taliban regime, the festival is a daring venture which has been publicized largely by word of mouth, and the date has been kept deliberately vague. Messages revealing the time and venue will go out to music fans only on the morning of the event. #

A laborer carries a sack of coal to be loaded onto a truck at a coal dump site outside Kabul, on October 19, 2011. Each laborer earns $10 on an average working day. Most of them come from the northern provinces, leaving their families behind in search of fortune in the capital. #

Afghan patient Parwin, 23, a mother of three children and three months pregnant, receives medical treatment by staff at the burn unit of Isteqlal hospital, after she committed self-immolation, in Kabul on October 8, 2011. Parwin covered herself in kerosene before setting fire to herself in her kitchen in Kunduz province. According to Parwin her husband who is working as daily laborer gave her very small amount of money and her brother-in-law often beat her, and once shocked her with electrical wires. In a the war-torn country where women are often oppressed, self-immolation has become a common practice to escape family problem, with cases of self-immolation growing at an alarming rate. #

A NATO helicopter lands on site after a suicide attack near Darul Aman palace (background) in Kabul, on October 29, 2011. At least 14 people, including foreign forces, were killed when a Taliban car bomber struck a US-run NATO convoy traveling through the Afghan capital. The attacker detonated his Toyota Sedan car at 11:20 am in the southwest of the city, and the area was now blocked by Afghan and international forces, said police spokesman Hashmat Stanikzai. #

A foreign soldier investigates the crater caused by an explosion at the site of a suicide attack in Kabul, on October 29, 2011. At least four people were killed when a suicide car bomber attacked a convoy of foreign soldiers in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Saturday, officials said, with an unspecified number of NATO-led troops among other casualties. #

An Afghan day laborer works at a local brick factory on the outskirts of Kabul on October 4, 2011. Afghanistan has been the top recipient of US aid over the past ten years, with some $18.8 billion flowing from Washington to projects meant to stabilize the war-torn country and win "hearts and minds" from a stubborn insurgency. #

A robot's-eye view of other robots waiting to be checked out by technicians in the Joint Robotics Repair Detachment's shop in Afghanistan's Parwan Province, on October 27. #

An Afghan man who sells carpets displays a handmade carpet bearing the image of U.S. President Barack Obama inside his shop, in Kabul, on October 12, 2011. The shop owner said that he spent a year sewing the carpet and it is not for sale. #

A Mil MI-8 helicopter taxis on the runway at sunrise at Camp Bastion, Helmand province, October 23. The Russian-built MI-8 is in use in over 50 countries around the globe. #

Pallbearers carry the casket of Master Corporal Byron Greff as his wife Lindsay (center partially obscured), daughter Brielle (in stroller) and son Kellar (bottom right) look on during a repatriation ceremony at Canadian Forces Base Trenton in Trenton, Ontario, on November 1, 2011. Greff was one of 17 people killed October 29 by a suicide car bomber in Kabul, Afghanistan. #

Donna and Dennis Elm, left, have an emotional moment during the burial service of their son, Army Spc. Michael Elm, 25, of Phoenix, Arizona, at Arlington National Cemetery in Arlington, Virginia, on October 31, 2011. The Defense Department announced that Elm died October 14 in Khowst, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit with an improvised explosive device. #

Both Murida (right) and Haubeda lost their legs after they stepped on land mines in Afghanistan. Today they work at the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) orthopedic center in Kabul, seen on October 9, 2011. Ten years after the start of a new chapter in Afghanistan's 30-year war, Afghans remain caught in the midst of continued armed violence. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), security and health care are the biggest humanitarian problems facing the people of Afghanistan. #

In this Friday, October 28, 2011 photo, Meena Rahmani, 26, owner of The Strikers, the country's first bowling center, holds a bowling ball in Kabul, Afghanistan. In an Afghan capital scarred by years of war, a young Afghan woman has bet $1 million that the country could use a chance to have a bit of fun -- by bowling. Located just down the street from Kabul's glitziest mall, Meena Rahmani opened Afghanistan's first bowling alley, offering a place where Afghan men, women and families can gather, relax, bowl a few games and not be burdened by the social, religious and cultural restrictions that govern daily life in the impoverished country. #

Afghans watch a movie at the French cultural center during the first Autumn Human Rights Film Festival in Kabul, on October 6, 2011. The festival, which takes place at the tenth anniversary of the start of the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan, a time when the human rights achievements and abuses of the last decade are in sharp focus, provides a central Asian stage for directors from Afghanistan and abroad who are tackling human rights issues, and a window for the public to explore challenges many have faced themselves. #

Afghan security forces keep watch near wreckage following an attack on a US-run base in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, on October 28, 2011. An Afghan interpreter was killed and eight other people wounded in a Taliban attack on a US-run base in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, NATO said October 28. Four attackers were killed in the assault on the civilian-military base housing the local provincial reconstruction team in what was the Taliban capital before the 2001 US-led invasion ousted the militia from power. #

British singer Cheryl Cole takes part in a demonstration by 42 Commando Royal Marines conducting a compound clearance followed by a casualty evacuation via a Chinook helicopter in Camp Bastion, Afghanistan, as she paid the British Troops a morale visit. #

Spc. Christopher J. McInerney, a Norfolk, Virginia, native, shows off his multiple head shots using paper zombie targets at the weapons qualification range at Forward Operating Base Lagman, Zabul province, Afghanistan, on October 14. Virginia National Guard 116th Infantry Brigade Combat Team soldiers, deployed in support of Operation Enduring Freedom, took part in the Halloween-themed training exercise. #

Young Eid Mohammed, who suffers from from chronic malnutrition, lies on a bed at Indira Gandhi Children's Hospital, in Kabul, on October 27, 2011. Afghanistan, one of the world's least-developed nations in the world, has an infant mortality rate of 129 deaths per 1,000 births; Afghan children die before reaching 5 at a rate of 191 for every 1,000 births. #

Aziz Ahmad, 25, who believes he has mental problems, is chained to a wall during his 40-day incarceration at the Mia Ali Baba Shrine in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, on October 11, 2011. It is believed locally that 40 days in chains and a restricted diet of bread and water at the 300-year old shrine can cure mentally ill people. Ahmad was chained by the shrine keeper at the request of his family. #

The Qala Iktyaruddin Citadel is seen in Herat, Afghanistan, on October 17, 2011. An ancient citadel in Herat that dates back to Alexander the Great has been restored, a bright sign of progress in a country destroyed by war. The citadel, a fortress that resembles a sand castle overlooking the city, and a new museum of artifacts at the site was completed by hundreds of local craftsmen and funding and support from the U.S. and German governments and the Aga Khan Trust for Culture. #

U.S. President Barack Obama shakes the prosthetic hand of Medal of Honor award recipient U.S. Army Sergeant 1st Class Leroy Petry after he introduced Obama to speak at the American Latino Heritage Forum in Washington, District of Columbia, on October 12, 2011. SFC Petry lost his right hand tossing away a grenade to save his fellow soldiers during combat in Afghanistan. #