Jawad, who like many Afghans uses just the one name, out playing with an old tyre in the Mikrorayan district of Kabul.

Simon Norfolk

Shah-do-Shamshira Mosque is known as the Mosque of the King with Two Swords. It was built in the 1920s on the order of King Amanullah’s mother on the site of one of Kabul’s first mosques named in honour of an early Muslim king who died fighting Hindu inva

Simon Norfolk

Wasteland at the back of shops used as stabling for draught horses. In the distance is the Bala Hissar citadel, now home to an Afghan army base and mooring for one of the American blimps that carry electronic surveillance gear and cameras.

Simon Norfolk

Entrance to the vast City Star Hall complex of wedding halls, on the new bypass out near Kabul Airport.

Simon Norfolk

A dumping ground for an abandoned Russian-era bomber that has now been incorporated into the car park of ‘Shamshad TV’, a new media company supported heavily by American money.

Simon Norfolk

Historically, Kuchis were strongly pro-Taliban; feelings made more intense by being bombed by NATO off their traditional grazing lands in Helmand. They are allowed to set up camp here on Kabul’s periphery only because it is below a large, new Afghan Army

Simon Norfolk

A de-mining team from the Mine Detection Centre in Kabul with a member of the German Police who is mentoring them.

Simon Norfolk

Young women in the indoor skatepark of the NGO ‘Skateistan’, set up by American volunteers to help young Afghans improve their skateboarding and indoor rock-climbing skills.

Simon Norfolk

Afghan police trainees being taken to the firing ranges by US Marines, Camp Leatherneck, Helmand.

Simon Norfolk

A shaded rest area built by helicoptor re-fuelling crews at Camp Bastion.

Simon Norfolk

A storage yard at Kandahar Air Field looking out beyond the wire, back into ‘Afghanistan’.

Simon Norfolk

I may not be a Ruralist anymore, but this morning I saw a fairy in my garden in Chiswick

Peter Blake