When this photo was taken on Nov. 29, 2009, only a small number of soldiers were still on the base. Most had gone home to observe the holiday Eid al-Adha.
Poorly equipped and badly paid, dogged by low morale and motivation problems, and no doubt harboring some troops sympathetic to the insurgency it ostensibly fights, the Afghan National Army is far from being able to stand up against the Taliban alone, despite years of training by experts from Britain, Canada, France, Italy, Romania, Turkey and the U.S.