Man's best friend: The dogs who sniff out explosives in Kabul

KABUL - Naya, a three-year-old Belgian Malinois, focuses intently as she leaps over hurdles and zooms through tunnels on an obstacle course at a training center on a hill overlooking Kabul.

She seems to be having fun, but is in fact being trained for a life-or-death mission: Finding explosives in a country where hidden mines, bombs and weapons routinely kill.

Naya is one of about 200 dogs at the Afghan capital's Mine Detection Center, or MDC, a nongovernmental group raising the animals from rambunctious pups into a disciplined force, and teaching handlers how to work with the canines.