Anja Niedringhaus / AP

An Afghan fireman stands next to the debris of a car at the scene where a suicide car bomber attacked a NATO convoy in Kabul, Afghanistan, on May 16.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

A U. S soldier secures the area where a suicide car bomber attacked a NATO convoy in Kabul on May 16.

 By Atia Abawi and Fazal Ahad, NBC News

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Six Americans were killed when a suicide bomber targeted a convoy carrying foreign troops in Kabul on Thursday, according to a NATO source. The victims included two soldiers and four civilian contractors, the source added. Officials said at least six Afghan civilians had also died. Full story

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

A U.S. soldier arrives at the scene where a suicide car bomber attacked a NATO convoy in Kabul on May 16.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

An Afghan man directs his children away from the scene of the attack.

S. Sabawoon / EPA

A U.S. soldier inspects the scene.

More stories from Kabul on PhotoBlog

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Prisoners in their cell at Badam Bagh, Afghanistan's central women's prison, in Kabul. A total of 202 women are imprisoned in the six-year-old jail, the majority of them in connection to so-called "moral" crimes.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

A prisoner with her child.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Mariam, who shot the man who raped her, has spent the past three months in Badam Bagh prison without any idea of why she was imprisoned, what charges she faces or when she can leave.

Lost and alone in a strange city Mariam called the only person she knew, her husband's cousin. She had left her home in Afghanistan's northern Kunduz province, fleeing her husband's relentless and increasingly vicious beatings. The man promised to help, but too busy to come himself he sent a friend who took her to a house, held a gun to her head and raped her.

Finished with her he settled in front of a TV set, the gun on a table by his side. Choosing her moment, Mariam picked up the gun, shot her assailant in the head and turned the gun on herself.

"Three days later I woke up in the hospital," she said, shyly removing a scarf from her head to reveal a partially shaved head and a long jagged scar that ran almost the length of her head where the bullet grazed her scalp.

From the hospital Mariam was sent to a police station and from there to Badam Bagh, Afghanistan's central women's prison, where she told her story to The Associated Press. For the past three months Mariam has been waiting to find out what charges she faces.

Mariam is one of 202 women living in the six-year-old jail. The majority are serving sentences of up to seven years for leaving their husbands, refusing to accept a marriage arranged by their parents, or choosing to leave their parents' home with a man of their choice — all so-called "moral" crimes, says the prison's director general Zaref Jan Naebi. Read the full story.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Adia, 27, left her husband, a drug addict, seeking shelter with her parents. They told her to go home to her husband, who had followed her demanding she return. She went to court to seek help but instead they sentenced her to six years in prison. Seven months pregnant, Adia will have her baby in jail.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

A prisoner hanging up laundry on a small patch of open space surrounded by a razor-topped fence.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

A prisoner outside her cell.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Prisoner Nuria with her infant son. "When I went to court for the divorce, instead of giving me a divorce, they charged me with running away," Nuria said. The man she wanted to marry was also charged and is now serving time in Afghanistan's notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Children walking through the prison. 62 children live with their imprisoned mothers in the jail.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Fauzia is the oldest woman in the jail and has already served seven years. She will serve a 17 year sentence for killing her husband and her daughter-in-law. "I was in one room. I came into the next room and they were there having sexual relations. I found a big knife and killed them both," she said in a voice empty of emotion.

Editor's note: Pictures taken on March 28, 2013 and made available to NBC News today.

Slideshow: Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads

Rahmat Gul / AP

More than ten years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.

Launch slideshow

Related:

Newlywed Afghan beheaded for her refusal to become prostitute

Afghanistan's female powerhouses: a rapper, a colonel and 'mother' to hundreds

Afghan artists use graffiti to depict violence and injustice of women's lives

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Men peer through the former window of a destroyed school in the village of Budyali, Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, on March 19, 2013. Taliban militants attacked the nearby district headquarters in July 2011, then took refuge in the school. The Afghan National Army requested help from coalition forces, who responded with drones, fighter jets and rockets, leaving the school destroyed, according to village elders.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Ahmed Shah, 12, center, recalls the attack on his village in the yard of a house where he and his family found refuge in the village of Khalis, Nangarhar province, on March 20, 2013.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Ghulam Rasool sits in the yard of his house in Khalis on March 20, 2013.

Barely able to walk even with a cane, Ghulam Rasool says he padlocked his front door, handed over the keys and his three cows to a neighbor and fled his mountain home in the middle of the night to escape relentless airstrikes from U.S. drones targeting militants in a remote corner of Afghanistan.

Rasool and other Afghan villagers have their own name for Predator drones. They call them benghai, which in the Pashto language means the "buzzing of flies." When they explain the noise, they scrunch their faces and try to make a sound that resembles an army of flies.

"They are evil things that fly so high you don't see them but all the time you hear them," said Rasool, whose body is stooped and shrunken with age and his voice barely louder than a whisper. "Night and day we hear this sound and then the bombardment starts." Read the full story.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Boys study in a makeshift school in the village of Budyali, Nangarhar province, on March 19, 2013.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Papers and schoolbooks lie among the debris of a destroyed school in the village of Budyali, Nangarhar province, on March 19, 2013.

Anja Niedringhaus / AP

Men walk through the debris of the destroyed school in the village of Budyali, Nangarhar province, on March 19, 2013.

Slideshow: Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads

Rahmat Gul / AP

More than ten years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.

Launch slideshow

Related:

• Drone protesters arrested at Air Force base in Nevada
• US Air Force stops reporting data on Afghanistan drone strikes
• Photos document alleged US drone strike victims in Pakistan

Jason Reed / AFP - Getty Images

Secretary of State John Kerry heads an Afghan-made soccer ball towards the captain of Afghanistan's women's national soccer team, Zahra Mahmoodi, as he meets with the women-owned company that makes the ball, and other Afghan women entrepreneurs at the U.S. Embassy in Kabul on March 26, 2013.

By Arshad Mohammed, Reuters

Jason Reed / AFP - Getty Images

Secretary of State John Kerry met Afghan businesswomen in Kabul on Monday in an effort to show U.S. commitment to women's rights - at one point heading a soccer ball with a 22-year-old female player.

Zahra Mahmoodi, captain of the Afghan women's national soccer team, asked Kerry for help to build a dedicated stadium where women and girls could play soccer.

Speaking to Reuters afterwards, she said she was particularly worried about a return of the Taliban after 2014.

"Yes, I am worried about that but I don't want to think about it," she said with a nervous laugh. "If the Taliban come back there will be no human rights and I think that it will be even worse than the past." Read the full story.

Related:

Suicide bombers kill five Afghan police as Kerry visits Kabul

Slideshow: Afghanistan, nation at a crossroads

Aj Reynolds / AP

Preston Abrams cries while being held by his mother Heather Abrams during a send off for the 1-214 Field Artillery in Elberton, Ga., Friday, Feb. 15, 2013. The 1-214 Field Artillery will leave Elberton for Mississippi on Feb. 26, 2013 and then deploy to Afghanistan.

Aj Reynolds / AP

Members of the 1-214 Field Artillery march in a parade during a send off for the 1-214 Field Artillery in Elberton, Ga., Friday.

Omar Sobhani / Reuters

Afghan security forces run on the roof of the Kabul traffic police headquarters as it is attacked by insurgents on Jan. 21, 2013.

Reuters reports — Suicide bombers and gunmen launched an eight-hour assault on the headquarters of the Kabul traffic police on Monday, Afghan officials said, in the second coordinated attack on a government building in less than a week.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the operation in which all five attackers and three traffic police officers were killed, interior ministry officials said.

The attack raised the possibility that insurgents were shifting tactics, testing Afghan security forces in Kabul after a series of high-profile attacks on Western targets last year. Read the full story.

Omar Sobhani / Reuters

Afghan police officers run to the Kabul traffic police headquarters as it is attacked by insurgents on Jan. 21, 2013.

Shah Marai / AFP - Getty Images

Black smoke billows from the Afghan police headquarters during an attack in Kabul on Jan. 21, 2013.

Slideshow: Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads

Aref Karimi / AFP - Getty Images

More than ten years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.

Launch slideshow

GRAPHIC WARNING: Contains images which some viewers may find disturbing.

Musadeq Sadeq / AP

A victim is transported to a hospital following a militant attack in Kabul, on Jan. 16.

S. Sabawoon / EPA

Afghan security officials inspect the scene of a suicide bomb attack that was targeting the office of the Afghan intelligence agency in Kabul on Jan. 16.

By Mirwais Harooni and Hamid Shalizi, Reuters

Six suicide bombers launched a coordinated attack on Afghanistan's spy agency in Kabul on Wednesday, killing at least two and wounding 22 others, Afghan officials said.

The attack started at around noon (0730 GMT) when the first assailant detonated a large car bomb near the entrance to the National Directorate of Security (NDS), the Kabul police chief's office said in a statement.

Five others strapped with explosives and driving a minivan were shot dead as they tried to enter the NDS compound, it said. Two NDS guards were killed by the first bomber and 22 others wounded, security and health officials said. Continue reading.

Shah Marai / AFP - Getty Images

An Afghan woman with her child move to safety as security personnel secure the site of a suicide attack near the Afghan intelligence agency headquarters in Kabul on Jan. 16.

Shah Marai / AFP - Getty Images

A truck driver peers through the broken windshield of his vehicle at the site of a suicide attack near the Afghan intelligence agency headquarters in Kabul on Jan. 16.

Ahmad Jamshid / AP

Security men with the Afghan intelligence services talk on their cell phones at the scene of a bombing in Kabul on Jan. 16.

Slideshow: Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads

Aref Karimi / AFP - Getty Images

More than ten years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.

Launch slideshow

Previously on PhotoBlog:

• White House releases photo from President Obama's 2012 visit to Kabul, Afghanistan
• Children wait for winter aid in Afghanistan
• Snow, extreme weather threaten 2 million Afghans
• Fire sweeps through Kabul cloth market
• Afghan refugees prepare for another winter

Pete Souza / The White House

Pete Souza, Official White House Photographer: May 1, 2012 "In Afghanistan, there was virtually no light inside the helicopter as we flew from Kabul back to Bagram Air Field after the President had met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. (For the photo buffs, this photograph was taken at ISO 6400, 1/5 second at f/1.4.) Flanking the President are  General John Allen, Commanding General of U.S. Forces in Afghanistan, and U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker. Denis McDonough, Deputy National Security Advisor, is at left." 

• Year in Photographs 2012 by Pete Souza on Flickr
• The White House's photostream
• Story: Obama hails the future of a 'new kind of relationship' with Afghanistan

Musadeq Sadeq / AP

Displaced Afghan children from Helmand Province wait for winter relief assistance from the United Nations Refugee Agency at a refugee camp in Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, on Sunday, Dec. 30. About 600 displaced families received relief assistance from the UN agency.

Related content:

Slideshow: Afghanistan: Nation at a crossroads

More than ten years after the beginning of the war, Afghanistan faces external pressure to reform as well as ongoing internal conflicts.

Launch slideshow