U.S. photojournalist Robert Nickelsberg has seen more of Afghanistan, and recent Afghan history, than many Afghans themselves. Since 1988, he's visited Afghanistan dozens of times, covering the country for Time and The New York Times. He returned most recently last month, for the launch of an exhibition of his photography at the Afghanistan Center at Kabul University.

The photos, covering several distinct phases in recent Afghan history, come from Nickelsberg's book Afghanistan: A Distant War, for which he received a 2014 Overseas Press Club award. After so many years of covering the country, he says: "Storytelling and documentation remains a priority. Witnessing historical moments remains a priority. The intimacy I have with the region has not changed, it's just evolved."

Originally Nickelsberg had planned only to present a Dari-language version of the book to the university, but the Afghanistan Center's director, Waheed Wafa, a former New York Times reporter, "is aware of the impact of photojournalism," Nickelsberg says, "and felt this was the right time to put this exhibit together."

Of more than 100 photos in the book, 52 appear in the exhibit. "It brings something of the past to students, who were maybe traumatized by violence but had no visual record available of this recent history," Nickelsberg says. "My desire was to return these images to them, to show the effect [conflict] has had on Afghans and for them to reflect on the incidents, personalities and intrigues." 

The photos, starting in 1988, span Afghanistan's immediate post-Soviet era, the agonizing civil war of the 1990s, the period of Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001, the U.S. invasion after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the present day. But in a country where almost two-thirds of the population is under 25, the images convey a history many Afghans today didn't actually live through — either because they weren't yet born or because their families had fled to other countries for safety during the years of conflict. - Read More at NPR

The Intense Images Of Afghanistan's Long And 'Distant War'

III. The Battle for Kabul: April 1992-March 1993 - Human ... - More at HRW