On Dec. 8, after a 13 year-long military operation, the US and NATO ceremonially ended their combat mission in Afghanistan.
Operation Enduring Freedom had the dual objective of hitting back at al Qaeda and their Taliban hosts after the 9/11 attacks and rebuilding Afghanistan into a functioning state. Today, the Taliban is in the middle of a resurgence with the Afghan military taking unsustainable losses as they assume more of the country's security burden.
It was against this backdrop that photographer Robert L. Cunningham returned to Afghanistan in order to capture the end of combat and the sense of the unknown that is now permeating both the Afghan and US military about what happens next.
Cunningham is one of a handful of people who have ever taken a Leica Monochrom, a black-and-white only digital camera, into a war zone. The majority of the following images are taken with the Monochrom, although not all of them.
Serving in Afghanistan was often exhausting, requiring soldiers to partake in grueling 12-hour-long patrols.
The threat of a Taliban attack always loomed. Vehicles destroyed in past Taliban operations are stacked at a police headquarters in a reminder of the war's constant dangers.
The country's tenuous situation has not been lost on Afghan officials. Here, the governor of Khost Province meets with Afghan military advisors to discuss security operations after coalition troops leave.
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