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America’s War In Afghanistan, In Photos

Like tens of thousands of Americans who served in Afghanistan since 2001, I know this land well from my journeys across more than half of its provinces as a professor of Afghan history and an employee of the CIA's Counter-Terrorism Center, which tasked me with tracking the movement of Taliban and Al-Qaeda suicide bombers. I also worked at a Forward Operations Base in Regional Command East as a subject matter expert.

While on my solo missions for the CIA and U.S. Army in what my team called the Red Zone beyond the safety of our base’s walls, I did something none of my U.S. Army comrades -- who traveled in convoys and were restricted by rules of engagement -- could do: I freely photographed the Afghan people around me as they went about their lives in an active war zone. All the photos were taken between late 2001 and 2007.

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Brian Glyn Williams

Brian Glyn Williams is professor of Islamic History at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. He is the author of Predators: The CIA's Drone War on Al Qaeda, A Guide to America's Longest War and Counter Jihad, The American Military Experience in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria and The Last Warlord: The Life and Legend of Dostum, the Afghan Warrior Who Led U.S. Special Forces to Topple the Taliban Regime. His work has appeared in Time Magazine, Newsweek, BBC, NPR, The Daily Beast, CNN, Al Jazeera, The Times of London, The Washington Post, and Rolling Stone. 

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