Police commander Kudai Rahm Shakir only had six men with him when the Taliban started firing at his post in Afghanistan’s Helmand province. The phones weren’t working, so he couldn’t call for help. In the ensuing shoot-out, which lasted through the night, all but one of his colleagues were killed. A bullet went through Shakir’s jaw, shredding his tongue. The unit’s machine gun was destroyed. As the enemy got nearer and nearer, Shakir resorted to lobbing grenades to stave them off. What he couldn’t do was run away – he didn’t have any legs.

Shakir is one of several Afghan police officers identified by the Bureau who are holding the line in America’s longest war without recourse to all their limbs. He lost his legs a year ago in an IED explosion. Fifteen days later, he was back on the frontline.

“If I go and sit in my house Taliban will go to my house and kill me,” he explains, speaking indistinctly through his shattered jaw. “This is the only way for me to protect myself and survive.”

The US has sent more than $70 billion to the Afghan security forces since 2002, funding that is supposed to have created a capable fighting force. Around $3.5 billion was budgeted for 2017. But endemic corruption and mismanagement means that money is often diverted away from where it is needed.

In many towns and villages, the end product of America’s vast spending is a rag-tag force of the desperate, the opportunistic, and in some cases, the limbless.