Afghan girl from iconic photo says she is optimistic about the future

Tarana Akbari, 15, was just 12 when a suicide attack killed seven members of her familu Credit: AFP/Massoud Hossaini

The photograph shows an Afghan child screaming, her arms flung down in despair, as she surveys the carnage around her after a suicide bombing.

She is surrounding by dead and injured people, some of them children and seven of them her own flesh and blood.

This Pulitzer Prize- winning image depicts the immediate aftermath of the bombing of a Shiite festival in Kabul in December 2011 - one of the city's worst terror attack.

Three years later, ITV News' Senior International Affairs Editor John Irvine tracked down the girl in green at the heart of the image.

Today, Tarana Akbari is still living in Kabul and while the events of that day are still painful, she says she is optimistic about Afghanistan's future.

But as the last of the British and Nato troops leave Afghanistan, this is not a sentiment shared by everyone.

Afghanistan's security forces have suffered heavy losses in the last year and the battle against the Taliban is far from over.

The photograph of that attack was taken by photojournalist Massoud Hossaini and was published on 7th December 2011. It was the first time the prestigious journalism award had been won by an Afghan.