Kabul: A-29 Super Tucano planes are on display during hand over from Resolute Support (RS) to Afghan army at the military Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan. The Afghan acting defense minister said these Super Tucanos are part of a U.S. donation via Resolute Support.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, center, U.S. Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, right, and NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, left, speaks during a joint news conference in presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan. The U.S. is poised to sign a peace agreement with Taliban militants on Saturday aimed at bringing an end to 18 years of bloodshed in Afghanistan and allowing U.S. troops to return home from America's longest war.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, right, shakes hands with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, after a joint news conference in presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan. The U.S. signed a peace agreement with Taliban militants on Saturday aimed at bringing an end to 18 years of bloodshed in Afghanistan and allowing U.S. troops to return home from America's longest war.
From left, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo meets with Qatar's Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani before a peace signing ceremony between the U.S. and the Taliban in Doha. The U.S. is poised to sign a peace agreement with Taliban militants on Saturday aimed at bringing an end to 18 years of bloodshed in Afghanistan and allowing U.S. troops to return home from America's longest war.
U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad, left, and Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the Taliban group's top political leader shack hands after signing a peace agreement between Taliban and U.S. officials in Doha, Qatar. The United States is poised to sign a peace agreement with Taliban militants on Saturday aimed at bringing an end to 18 years of bloodshed in Afghanistan and allowing U.S. troops to return home from America's longest war.
Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, who served as ambassador to Pakistan during the Taliban's rule speaks to the media in Doha, Qatar. The United States is poised to sign a peace agreement with Taliban militants on Saturday aimed at bringing an end to 18 years of bloodshed in Afghanistan and allowing U.S. troops to return home from America's longest war.
US President Donald Trump shakes hands during a meeting with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani during a surprise Thanksgiving Day visit, at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan.
US President Donald Trump addresses members of the military during a surprise Thanksgiving Day visit at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan.
US President Donald Trump speaking to members of the military during a surprise Thanksgiving Day visit, at Bagram Air Field, Afghanistan.
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani speaks during a ceremony to introduce the new chief of the intelligence service, in Kabul, Afghanistan. Ghani, whose government was sidelined in the U.S.-Taliban talks, again declared that his country was ready to meet with the Taliban but that "negotiation without a cease-fire is not possible."
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, center left, walks with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani's Chief of Staff Abdul Salam Rahimi, as he arrives at the Presidential Palace in Kabul, Afghanistan during an unannounced visit.
Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, center, walks in a hall as he attends the "intra-Afghan" talks in Moscow, Russia. The U.S. has promised to withdraw half of its troops from Afghanistan by the end of April, a Taliban official said Wednesday, but the U.S. military said it has received no orders to begin packing up.
U.S. Secretary for Defense Jim Mattis, center, walks off the podium with NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg, left, and British Defense Minister Gavin Williamson, right, after a group photo of NATO defense ministers at NATO headquarters in Brussels. U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and his NATO counterparts started two days of talks in Brussels looking to expand the military alliance's command structure and drum up more troop contributions for Afghanistan.
Pakistanis rally against America in Lahore, Pakistan. Protesters objected to President Donald Trump's allegation that Islamabad is harboring militants who battle U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson leaves after speaking at the State Department in Washington, to discuss Afghanistan.
Afghan National Army soldiers stand guard at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Kabul, Afghanistan. Deep in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, on the front lines against Taliban and Islamic State fighters, U.S. military commanders say they needs more forces to better train Afghan soldiers to combat the escalating threat.
President Donald Trump speaks at Fort Myer in Arlington Virginia, during a Presidential Address to the Nation about a strategy he believes will best position the U.S. to eventually declare victory in Afghanistan.
U.S. Defense Secretary James Mattis, meets with the defense minister and other members of the Afghan delegation at Resolute Support headquarters, in Kabul Afghanistan. Mattis arrived unannounced in Afghanistan to assess America's longest war as the Trump administration weighs sending more U.S. troops.
US President Barack Obama waves as he and Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani conclude their news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, USA.
Afghan Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, Secretary of State John Kerry, and Secretary of Defense Ash Carter greet each other after a news conference at Camp David Presidential retreat, in Camp David, Afghanistan.
Shah Bibi Tarakhail, a six-year-old Afghan girl whose love of painting won the hearts of US doctors who fit her with a prosthetic, with her host mother, Ann Drummond, at Shriners Hospital for Children, in Los Angeles. Shah Bibi Tarakhail, who lost her right arm and right eye when she picked up a grenade following a firefight between US and Taliban forces in her village near the Pakistan border, returned to the United States after the group that sponsored her first visit said it learned that her new-found celebrity status made her a subject of death threats at home.
President Barack Obama being briefed by Marine General Joseph Dunford, commander of the US-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), right, and US Ambassador to Afghanistan James Cunningham after arriving at Bagram Air Field for an unannounced visit, north of Kabul, Afghanistan.
Soldiers’ pay Injured US soldiers await evacuation by helicopter from Kamdesh, in Nuristan, August 2006
FILE - In this file image taken on Oct. 4, 2009, Pakistan's new Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud, center, operates light machine gun with his comrades in Sararogha in Pakistani tribal area of South Waziristan along Afghanistan border. Intelligence officials said the leader of the Pakistani Taliban Hakimullah Mehsud was one of three people killed in a U.S. drone strike.
FILE - In this file photo taken Sunday, Oct. 4, 2009, new Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud, left, is seen with his comrade Waliur Rehman, front center, during his meeting with media in Sararogha of Pakistani tribal area of South Waziristan along the Afghanistan border. Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan chief chief Hakimullah Mehsud, who was killed in a CIA-operated drone strike in the country's restive North Waziristan, was today buried at an unknown location, a media report said.
DECLARED The Taliban, its plan of starting peace talks with US and Afghanistan, and not ‘harming other countries’, through spokesman Mohammed Naim from a new office in Doha.
Afghans shout as they burn a U.S. flag during a demonstration in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, condemning last week's air strike in Kunar. Hundreds of students in eastern Afghanistan shouted angry slogans against the United States and U.S. soldiers accusing them of carrying out the killings of civilians in Kunar.
Secretary of State John Kerry listens as Afghan President Hamid Karzai speaks during their joint news conference at the presidential palace in Kabul. Kerry and Karzai made a show of unity shortly after the U.S. military ceded control of its last detention facility in Afghanistan, ending a longstanding irritant in relations between the two countries. Kerry, in Afghanistan for an unannounced visit, said he and Karzai were "on the same page" when it comes to peace talks with the Taliban.
An Afghan prisoner leaves with his belongings from the Parwan Detention Facility after the U.S. military gave control of its last detention facility to Afghan authorities in Bagram, outside Kabul, Afghanistan. The handover of Parwan Detention Facility ends a bitter chapter in American relations with Afghanistan's mercurial president, Hamid Karzai, who demanded control of the prison as a matter of national sovereignty.
French soldiers with the NATO- led forces walk past blood stained snow at the scene of a suicide attack in Kabul, Afghanistan. A man wearing a black overcoat and carrying an umbrella as a shelter against the heavy snow crossed a street in the Afghan capital early Wednesday morning toward an idling bus filled with Afghan soldiers, where he laid down and wiggled underneath. Then he exploded, engulfing the undercarriage of the bus in flames.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai gestures as he speaks with President Barack Obama during their bilateral meeting in the Oval Office of the White in Washington.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton shakes hands with Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul during a meeting of the U.S. Afghanistan Bilateral Commission, at the State Department in Washington.
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, left, walks with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai to a news conference at the Presidential Palace in Kabul. The Obama administration on July 7 declared Afghanistan the United States' newest "major non-NATO ally," an action designed to facilitate close defense cooperation after U.S. combat troops withdraw from the country in 2014 and as a political statement of support for Afghanistan's long-term stability.
President Barack Obama steps off Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Md. upon his return from Afghanistan. On a surprise visit to Afghanistan, Obama signed an agreement with his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai signalling the transition in which the US is going to be turning over responsibility for Afghan security to the Afghans.
President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai sign a strategic partnership agreement at the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan.
An Army carry team salutes a vehicle transporting a transfer case containing the remains of Sgt. Tanner S. Higgins at Dover Air Force Base, Del. According to the Department of Defense, Higgins, 23, of Yantis, Texas, died April 14, 2012 in Logar province, Afghanistan, of wounds sustained when enemy forces attacked his unit with small arms fire.
Five days after shrouding his name in the cloak of military secrecy, the American soldier who went on a shooting rampage killing 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children in villages in Kandahar was identified as Staff Sgt Robert Bales. Bales, who arrived at a US military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas from Kuwait after his arrest is a father of two children who underwent anger management counselling, a decade ago.
U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, left, meets with Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai in Kabul. Afghan lawmakers expressed anger over the U.S. move to fly an American soldier accused of killing 16 civilians out of the country to Kuwait, saying Kabul shouldn't sign a strategic partnership agreement with Washington unless the suspect faces justice in Afghanistan.
Demonstrators chant anti U.S. slogans as they carry a red cross following Sunday's killing of civilians in Panjwai, Kandahar by a U.S. soldier during a protest in Jalalabad east of Kabul, Afghanistan. Hundreds of students in eastern Afghanistan shouted angry slogans against the United States and the American soldier accused of carrying out the killings, the first significant protest in response to the tragedy.
An Afghan woman, right, is interviewed as she sits next to the body of a child allegedly killed by a U.S. service member in Panjwai, Kandahar province south of Kabul, Afghanistan. A U.S. service member walked out of a base in southern Afghanistan before dawn and started shooting Afghan civilians, according to villagers and Afghan and NATO officials. Villagers showed an 'Associated Press' photographer 15 bodies, including women and children, and alleged they were killed by the American.
University students of Nangarhar stand around a burning U.S. flag and an effigy of U.S. President Barack Obama during an anti-U.S. and Afghan government demonstration in Jalalabad east of Kabul, Afghanistan. More than 1,000 university students blocked a main highway in eastern Afghanistan as they protested against any agreement that would allow U.S. troops to stay in Afghanistan after a planned transfer of authority in 2014.
Afghan security men gather at the site of a blast in Kandahar, Afghanistan. A NATO service member was killed in a roadside bombing in the same restive southern Afghan province where the U.S.-led alliance, a day earlier, repelled a coordinated Taliban attack on a U.S.-run civilian and military base.
An afghan woman takes part in an anti U.S. rally organized by Afghanistan's " Hambastegi" party in Kabul, Afghanistan. Hundreds of people marched through the streets of the Afghan capital, demanding the immediate withdrawal of international military forces ahead of the 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion.
Afghan people burn a U.S. national flag in an anti U.S. rally organized by " Afghanistan Hambastegi" party in Kabul, Afghanistan.
*FILE* US soldiers from the 2nd Brigade, 87th Infantry Regiment, 10th Mountain Division, secure the area after exiting a Chinoonk helicopter, Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan, in this Sunday, June 18, 2006 file photo. Insurgents shot down a U.S. military helicopter on Saturday Aug 6, 2011 similar to this one shown during fighting in eastern Afghanistan, killing 30 Americans, most of them belonging to the same elite Navy SEALs unit that killed Osama bin Laden, as well as seven Afghan commandos, U.S. officials said. It was the deadliest single loss for American forces in the decade-old war.
Marine Lt. Gen. John Allen, President Obama's choice to lead the military in Afghanistan, right, prepares for his confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on June 28, 2011, before the Senate Armed Service Committee. From right to left are: Allen; Navy Vice Adm. William H. McRaven, nominee to become commander of the U.S. Special Operations Command; and Gen. James D. Thurman, nominee to become commander of U.S. forces in Korea.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates climbs the steps to his aircraft at Kabul Airport. In a last farewell to US and international forces in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Robert Gates says they are on track to deliver a decisive blow against the Taliban.
Afghan protesters shout anti-US slogans during a demonstration in Shinwar, Nangarhar province, east of Kabul, Afghanistan. Protests erupted in Afghanistan again against a Florida pastor's burning of the Quran, making four straight days of demonstrations - some deadly - against the destruction of Islam's holy book in a country struggling to beat back an insurgency led by Taliban religious extremists.
An Afghan youth looks at the damage caused during a NATO's forces raid in Khogyani district of Nangarhar province, east of Kabul, Afghanistan. The NATO coalition says it is investigating the accidental death of Afghan civilians in Nangarhar province along the Pakistan border.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden meets the U.S. troops at Bagram air base, northwest of Kabul, Afghanistan.
A Helicopter carrying US Vice President Joe Biden lands at a forward operating base Airborne, in Maidan Shar, in Afghanistan's Wardak province.
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, center, is accompanied by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, left, as they inspect the guard of honor ahead of their meet in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Hollywood actor Robin Williams entertain US troops during a United Service Organizations, USO, show at US embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan.
A US soldier wears a Santa hat as he smokes at the Combat out post in Fortress, near to the Pakistani border in Kunar province, eastern Afghanistan.
An Afghan TV shop's seller, watches as U.S. President Barack Obama speaks to troops at a rally during an unannounced visit at Bagram Air Field, waiting for customers in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai gestures during a joint press conference with Pakistan's Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani at the presidential palace in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Afghans burn an effigy of Dove World Outreach Center's pastor Terry Jones during a demonstration against the United States in Kabul. Hundreds of Afghans railed against the U.S. and called for President Barack Obama's death at a rally in the capital to denounce the American church's plans to burn the Islamic holy book on 9/11.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange speaks during a press conference in London. Assange said he believes there is evidence of war crimes in the thousands of pages of leaked U.S. military documents relating to the war in Afghanistan. The remarks came after WikiLeaks, a whistle-blowing group, posted some 91,000 classified U.S. military records over the past six years about the war online, including unreported incidents of Afghan civilian killings and covert operations against Taliban figures.
Afghan villagers stand near the body of a man killed by U.S. soldiers claiming he was a farmer rather than a suspected Taliban insurgent involved in clashes with troops at Samir Kalacha in the volatile Arghandab Valley, Kandahar, Afghanistan.
A US Army soldier directs mortar fire towards insurgent positions during clashes at COP Nolen, in the volatile Arghandab Valley, Kandahar, Afghanistan.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange speaks during a press conference in London. Assange said he believes there is evidence of war crimes in the thousands of pages of leaked U.S. military documents relating to the war in Afghanistan. The remarks came after WikiLeaks, a whistle-blowing group, posted some 91,000 classified U.S. military records over the past six years about the war online, including unreported incidents of Afghan civilian killings and covert operations against Taliban figures.
A U.S. Army soldier crosses an irrigated field during a patrol by the 1-320th Alpha Battery, 2nd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division near COP Nolen, in the volatile Arghandab Valley, Kandahar, Afghanistan.
A US military vehicle burns after it was hit by a blast in Jalalabad, east of Kabul. An Afghan official said that a suicide car bomb hit the convoy and that one person was killed and nine were wounded. A NATO spokeswoman confirmed an explosion hit a coalition convoy but said she had been told it was a homemade bomb and not a suicide attacker.
Ammunition is seen across the chest of an Afghan National Army soldier as United States soldiers from Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion of the 508 Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne, patrol in the village of Pir-e-Paymal in the volatile Arghandab Valley, outside Kandahar City
This July 6, 2009 file photo shows medics attached to the U.S. Marines from the 2nd MEB, 1st Battalion 5th Marines carrying a Marine, who was overcome by heat exhaustion, to a medical evacuation helicopter in the Nawa district of Afghanistan's Helmand province. The American military death toll in Afghanistan surpassed 1,000 when NATO reported that a service member was killed on May 28, 2010 in a roadside bombing in southern Afghanistan.
In this Feb. 14, 2010 file photo, a U.S. soldier returns fire as others run for cover during a firefight with insurgents in the Badula Qulp area, west of Lashkar Gah in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan. The American military death toll in Afghanistan surpassed 1,000 when NATO reported that a service member was killed on May 28, 2010 in a roadside bombing in southern Afghanistan.
U.S. Army soldiers leave their base after a handover ceremony northeast of Baghdad, Iraq. The next step in the security agreement is the withdrawal of the first major wave of US troops and this would reduce the force level from 92,000 to 50,000 troops by Aug. 31, 2010.
Comrades of fallen Canadian trooper Larry Rudd carry his casket onto a plane during a ramp ceremony at Kandahar Airfield, in Afghanistan. Rudd, 26, was the 146th member of the Canadian military to die in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion in 2001. Britain has lost nearly 300 people, and the number of US military deaths is approaching the 1,000 mark.
U.S. soldiers patrol through the heart of Kabul, Afghanistan. President Barack Obama announced he was sending 30,000 more U.S. troops to the war. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, said NATO and U.S. forces would hand over responsibility for securing the country to the Afghan security forces "as rapidly as conditions allow." Obama said if conditions are right, U.S. troops could begin leaving Afghanistan in 18 months.
U.S. soldiers patrol on the outskirts of Spin Boldak, near the border with Pakistan, in Afghanistan. Thousands of U.S. troops are deploying in southern Afghanistan as part of an effort to prevent the Taliban from disrupting the country's Aug. 20 presidential ballot.
