Afghanistan's President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Officer Abdullah Abdullah celebrated the ancient festival of Nawroz, the Afghan New Year, as they headed to Washington, DC - their first official visit to the US.

In less than two weeks, Afghanistan’s new president, Ashraf Ghani, will head to London to meet with international donors. At the conference, scheduled for Dec. 4, he will seek billions of dollars to develop Afghanistan in a new era, as U.S. and international combat troops are preparing to withdraw by year's end. Afghanistan is facing a fiscal crisis; it recently ran out of money to pay salaries of civil servants.