Afghan teenagers prepare to fly their kites on a hilltop overlooking Kabul. In the skies above Kabul, hundreds of Afghans celebrated the war-torn country's New Year by engaging in a vicious aerial combat to the death. High over a hill in the city, a white kite swept under a green, purple and orange rival and sliced through the thread connecting it to its owners, who smiled broadly even as their craft fluttered crippled and useless to the ground. "Every New Year we come here to fight kites," said Harst Kalq, a 20-year-old interpreter, whose kite had just lost. "Kite-flying is our culture. All Afghans like it. Children learn to make them when they are very small." (Shah Marai/AFP/Getty Images) #