AFGHANISTAN-UNREST-MILITARY

To go with 'Afghanistan-Unrest-Military' FOCUS by Ben Sheppard In this this photograph taken on December 10, 2014, Lieutenant Saeed Nazir, the senior officer at Siah Choy, a small combat outpost in southern Afghanistan where he has served since 2009, looks over protective sand barriers around his base. "I saw many Americans come and go -- some units only stayed six months," said Lieutenant Saeed Nazir, 40, senior officer at Siah Choy, where he has served since 2009. Two weeks before NATO's combat mission finishes on December 31, Nazir led a foot patrol through nearby villages, marking the final day of a 10-day operation involving 1,200 troops and 300 police across four districts. Now manned by just 30 Afghan soldiers, the base is in Kandahar province's Zhari district -- the birthplace of the Taliban movement and scene of years of heavy fighting as NATO forces struggled to gain a foothold in the area. AFP PHOTO/Roberto SCHMIDT (Photo credit should read ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images)