This month has been the deadliest month yet for foreign troops in Afghanistan. The U.S. Department of Defense now reports that one hundred coalition troops were killed this month. The death toll for 2010 to date now stands at 320. With soldiers and equipment still arriving in the country, peak troop strength is anticipated to reach 150,000 by August. And, with the removal of General Stanley McChrystal from command of Afghanistan following an embarrassing article in Rolling Stone magazine, a shift in leadership is underway with General David Petraeus attending confirmation hearings now. Efforts are now being made ot both weaken the Taliban and pressure them to reconcile with the Afghan government, but progress is slow, and many earlier gains are becoming unstable once more. Collected here are images of the country and conflict over the past month, part of an ongoing monthly series on Afghanistan.
Two-year-old Faith Marie Adams reaches for one of the U.S. flags from her father, Army Spc. Christian M. Adams’ coffin, during military honors ceremonies at the Main Post Chapel on Fort Huachuca, Arizona on Tuesday, June, 22, 2010. Christian Adams, stationed at Fort Hood, Texas, died in Afghanistan on June 11. (AP Photo/Arizona Daily Star, Kelly Presnell)
Soldiers of A Company from the 1st Battalion of Royal Gurkha Rifles and Afghan National Police patrol in Nahr e Saraj village, in Helmand, on June 24, 2010. Britain has around 9,500 troops in Afghanistan and is the second biggest contributor of forces to ISAF after the United States. (BAY ISMOYO/AFP/Getty Images)
Afghan farmers harvest wheat outside Kabul, Afghanistan, Thursday, June 24, 2010. (AP Photo/Dusan Vranic)
A member of a US Army Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) team stands at the entrance to a container wearing a bomb disposal suit prior to an exercise at Camp Nathan Smith in Kandahar City on June 15, 2010. (Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images)
A dead Taliban fighter lies on the ground following clashes with Afghan security forces near the “National Consultive Peace Jirga” tent in Kabul on June 2, 2010. A Taliban suicide squad armed with rockets on June 2 targeted a landmark Afghan peace conference hosted by President Hamid Karzai in a bid to seek a consensus on how to end nearly nine years of war. At least five explosions, believed to be caused by rockets, and gunfire erupted near the giant air-conditioned tent where 1,600 delegates from across the country and Western diplomats attended the opening of the “peace jirga”. (MASSOUD HOSSAINI/AFP/Getty Images)
Soldiers of A Company 1st Battalion Royal Gurkha Rifles make their way through the night as part of Operation Kapcha Door in Nahr e Saraj, in Helmand, early on June 26, 2010. (BAY ISMOYO/AFP/Getty Images)
U.S. Army soldiers carry a critically wounded American soldier on a stretcher to an awaiting MEDEVAC helicopter from Charlie Co. Sixth Battalion, 101st Airborne Combat Aviation Brigade, Task Force Shadow June 24, 2010 near Kandahar, Afghanistan. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
[Read More and See All at Boston.com]