Photojournalist Robert Nickelsberg has been covering Afghanistan since 1988, when the mujahideen were fighting to expel Soviet troops. In Afghanistan: A Distant War, his images tell the stories of military leaders, the Taliban, ordinary citizens, and American soldiers who are only the latest in a long line of occupying forces, most of whom withdrew unhappily. Many of Nickelsberg's photographs show important events or military action, but some of the most affecting portray nothing more than Aghan people trying to get on with their lives.
November 2001: Standing beside a wall bombed by U.S. aircraft in Chowkar Karez, Kandahar province, an Afghan shepherd shouts to his children to lead their flock of goats over to him.
All images taken from Afghanistan: A Distant War, by Robert Nickelsberg (Prestel)
Robert Nickelsberg
MAY 1988: An Afghan soldier hands a flag in solidarity to a departing Soviet soldier in Kabul on the first day of the army’s withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Robert Nickelsberg
March 1989: Afghan mujahideen move toward the front line during the battle of Jalalabad.
Robert Nickelsberg
April 1991: a mujahideen fighter outside Khost, the first city in Afghanistan to be liberated from communist rule since the Soviet invasion in 1979.
Robert Nickelsberg
MARCH 1993: Two Afghans help a wounded civilian through cross fire during a battle between rival factions in Kabul.
Robert Nickelsberg
January 1995: Laboratory equipment and research books lie strewn about the floor of a science classroom in a Kandahar school, an area controlled by the Taliban.
Robert Nickelsberg
October 1996: A Taliban mullah speaks to a crowd gathered in central in Kabul after Taliban forces took control from the Rabbani government.
Robert Nickelsberg
February 2001: At the Maslakh camp for newly arrived IDP's (internally displaced people), Afghans fleeing the effects of a severe drought and serious lack of food, arrive at Herat city seeking emergency shelter and rations. The United Nations Office for Afghanistan has estimated 80,000 Afghans have arrived from western provinces to several Herat camps at the rate of 25-50 families per day. Coordination of relief aid has been hampered by frequent disagreements and confusion with the ruling Taliban government. Figures vary from 150 to 450 people dying due to exposure and respirtory illnesses since mid-january 2001. Here, men and a mullah wash the dead body of a one year old baby, Abdullah, before the traditional islamic burial. The baby died from a flu after sleeping with no shelter outdoors during a rainstorm with his family.
Robert Nickelsberg
August 2006: In Kamdesh, Nuristan province, three wounded American soldiers await evacuation by helicopter after being injured in an ambush.
Robert Nickelsberg
March 2009: An American soldier shaking hands with an Afghan youth outside Jalrez in Wardak province. On the hill where they stand, overlooking apple orchards,there are still trenches that were dug two decades earlier by Afghan mujahideen fighting against Soviet forces.
Robert Nickelsberg
May 2013: The remains of a Chevrolet Suburban are removed after a suicide bomber rammed his his care into a NATO convoy in Kabul, killing 16 people, including two American soldiers and four civilian contractors.
Robert Nickelsberg
