US SAILOR PREPARES TO PRAY AT DAMAGED MOSQUE AT KANDAHAR AIRPORT, 2001-12-29 (photo)

U.S. Navy corpsman HM1 Russell Scott, from Brooklyn, New York, takes a break from cleaning a damaged mosque for a moment of prayer, at Kandahar International Airport December 29, 2001. Meanwhile, in the battered Afghan capital of Kabul, fighters of the Northern Alliance that swept the Taliban out of Kabul and U.N.-mandated foreign security troops prepared to hold their first joint military exercises, officials said. Interim leader Hamid Karzai has welcomed the force, as have several commanders, tribal elders and ordinary Afghans eager to see peacekeepers prevent a return to the anarchy of the 1990s. REUTERS/Rob Curtis-POOL HB/