Photos: The Afghan Army Prepares to Fight on Its Own

As the last coalition troops get set to leave Afghanistan, the Afghan National Army is bracing for its inheritance. The 100,000 international soldiers who remain in the country (roughly half of them American) have already moved into a largely advisory role, leaving the less seasoned Afghan forces to lead the fighting and draw the enemy fire; according to the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office, the first three months of 2013 were almost twice as bloody as the same stretch of the previous year, but only 4 percent of the attacks targeted foreign military. In October, photographer Sebastiano Tomada Piccolomini, who has been embedded with the Afghan army on and off since 2009, spent time with a unit patrolling a part of Eastern Afghanistan where the Taliban terrorizes travelers on a crucial highway linking the region to Kabul. Though the Afghan soldiers appeared combat-ready, the reality was less encouraging. “They have the small-arms firepower, but not the technology nor the air support,” he says. “They look like a real army, but they still have a lot to learn.” —Nora Caplan-Bricker