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Zalmai

Foreign aid and investment spawned a construction boom in the capital. Luxury apartments, hotels, and offices sprouted up on previously derelict blocks like this one, in 2011.

Afghan women in big cities have enjoyed dramatic gains in rights and freedoms over the past 20 years. Many shed the head-to-toe burka coverings mandated by the Taliban in favor of modern clothing, like this woman in Kabul in 2011.

In 2012, kids play in front the towering niches where reliefs of the Bamyan Buddha once stood. The massive 6th-century art works were blown up by the Taliban in March 2001 after their leader decreed the destruction of all non-Islamic statues and sanctuaries.

Since 2001, 5.9 million Afghans have been displaced by fighting, according to the Costs of War Project at Brown University. In 2009, families fleeing violence in northern Kunduz Province were living in this makeshift refugee camp in Kabul.

A Northern Alliance soldier watches an American war plane fly over Salang Pass in central Parwan Province before the fall of the Taliban in 2001. The pass was a strategic target because it is the main mountain pass between northern Afghanistan and Kabul Province.