The moment the 54-year-old walks up to the car, it is obvious something is terribly wrong. The way he drags his feet, then stamps them on the ground and marches forward like a toy soldier, head lowered; then the way he looks up at you from beneath dark brows, in both greeting and concern. Taamy Wahab Mohamed al-Yasaari should have returned from the Isis battlefront to a land fit for heroes.

For the Shia Muslims of southern Iraq, he counts among the heroes. When I ask him when he was wounded, he looks and stares at the wall in a distressed way, dark eyes framed by thick black hair but white beard. “Several times I was wounded,” al-Yasaari says. And you can tell that the bullets and shrapnel have framed a diary in his mind. “On 28 April 2015 at Bayji, on 3 July 2015, again at Bayji, on 5 May 2016 on the Makhoul mountains near Tikrit, then on 3 July 2017 at Khalidiya in Anbar province.” It was the last wound which did for him.

“I was leading a company of the Ali Akbar brigade into an attack on the enemy, and an Isis sniper shot me in the head. His bullet hit me in the back of the brain.” And here al-Yasaari puts his left hand to the back of his head. “I lost part of my skull and words are very difficult for me now. My memories are very difficult. I regret nothing. I followed the fatwa of our leader [ayatollah Ali al-Sistani]. Look, here are my wounds.”

And the staring eyes of al-Yasaari look at me as he rolls up his trousers to show scars and great searing cuts across his legs. There is a terrible mark on his calf, as if someone has sawed away at the flesh. He had paid the price of following Sistani’s fatwa – to fight a “defensive war” against Isis after the Islamist capture of Mosul in 2014 – and it is clear that today he thinks of little else.

Timeline of the Isis caliphate Show all 19 1 /19 Timeline of the Isis caliphate Timeline of the Isis caliphate ISIS began as a group by the merging of extremist organisations ISI and al-Nusra in 2013. Following clashes, Syrian rebels captured the ISIS headquarters in Aleppo in January 2014 (pictured) AFP/Getty Timeline of the Isis caliphate Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi declared the creation of a caliphate in Mosul on 27 June 2014 Timeline of the Isis caliphate Isis conquered the Kurdish towns of Sinjar and Zumar in August 2014, forcing thousands of civilians to flee their homes. Pictured are a group of Yazidi Kurds who have fled Rex Timeline of the Isis caliphate On September 2 2014 Isis released a video depicting the beheading of US journalist Steven Sotloff. On September 13 they released another video showing the execution of British aid worker David Haines Timeline of the Isis caliphate The US launched its first airstrikes against Isis in Syria on 23 September 2014. Here Lt Gen William C Mayville Jnr speaks about the bombing campaign in the wake of the first strikes Getty Timeline of the Isis caliphate Isis militants sit atop a hill planted with their flag in the Syrian town of Kobani on 6 October 2014. They had been advancing on Kobani since mid-September and by now was in control of the city’s entrance and exit points AFP/Getty Timeline of the Isis caliphate Residents of the border village of Alizar keep guard day and night as they wait in fear of mortar fire from Isis who have occupied the nearby city of Kobani Getty Timeline of the Isis caliphate Smoke rises following a US airstrike on Kobani, 28 October 2014 AFP/Getty Timeline of the Isis caliphate YPG fighters raise a flag as they reclaim Kobani on 26 January 2015 VOA Timeline of the Isis caliphate Isis seized the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra on 20 May 2015. This image show the city from above days after its capture by Isis Getty Timeline of the Isis caliphate Kurdish forces are stationed on a hill above the town of Sinjar as smoke rises following US airstrikes on 12 November 2015 AFP/Getty Timeline of the Isis caliphate Kurdish forces enter Sinjar after seizing it from Isis control on 13 November 2015 AFP/Getty Timeline of the Isis caliphate Iraqi government forces make the victory sign as they retake the city of Fallujah from ISIS on 26 June 2016 Getty Timeline of the Isis caliphate Iraqi forces battle with Isis for the city of Mosul on 30 June 2017 AFP/Getty Timeline of the Isis caliphate Members of the Iraqi federal police raise flags in Mosul on 8 July 2017. On the following day, Iraqi prime minister Haider Al Abadi declares victory over Isis in Mosul Getty Timeline of the Isis caliphate Members of Syrian Democratic Forces celebrate in Al-Naim square after taking back the city of Raqqa from Isis. US-backed Syrian forces declare victory over Isis in Raqqa on 20 October 2017 after a four-month long campaign Getty Timeline of the Isis caliphate Female fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces celebrate in Al-Naim Square after taking back the city of Raqqa from Isis. US-backed Syrian forces declare victory over Isis in Raqqa on 20 October 2017 after a four-month long campaign AFP/Getty Timeline of the Isis caliphate Trucks full of women and children arrive from the last Isis-held areas in Deir ez-Zor, Syria in January 2019 They were among the last civilians to be living in the ISIS caliphate, by this time reduced to just two small villages in Syria’s Deir ez-Zor Richard Hall/The Independent Timeline of the Isis caliphate Zikia Ibrahim, 28, with her two-year-old son and 8-month-old daughter, after fleeing the Isis caliphate, on Saturday 26 January 2019 Richard Hall/The Independent

He is still dressed in military uniform, constantly stretching his legs in pain, and in the little “diwaniya” reception room of his home on the outskirts of Kerbala there is a display of coloured photographs of a smiling, younger al-Yasaari, arms round friends at the war front, one of the pictures showing him firing a rocket-propelled grenade. He keeps looking at a camera video of the same scene. He lives in his own war museum.

“I thought I was dead,” he says. “So did my comrades. The back of my head was blown away. They called my brother Jassem, and said to him, ‘Your brother has been martyred’. Jassem asked them, ‘Are you sure?’ They said, ‘What do you expect us to say – he was shot in the head!’ I was left for dead but two hours later they noticed my pulse. Jassem was asking if he could come and get me but they said the fighting was too bad.

“Eventually, they got me onto a helicopter and to the Kadimiyeh hospital [in Baghdad]. Then they took me to a Kerbala hospital where an Indian and Iraqi doctor told me that I had to sign an indemnity for an operation – because there was only a 1 per cent chance of success. The bones at the back of my brain had to be taken out and replaced with titanium. There were no more bones behind my brain. I signed.”

Incredibly, al-Yasaari asked to return to the battle until another holy fatwa was given to leave, because “I had to be with my comrades, even if I have to clean the lavatories to be with them”. He was not granted his wish, but instead driven to his tiny house with its palm tree in the drive, receiving financial help from the Imam Hussein Holy Shrine group, a Shia organisation, as well as a pittance from the government. Suddenly, he stands up and begins stomping up and down the little room, a toy soldier again. “He does not change,” one of his relatives says.

“The Daesh [Isis] were all brainwashed – all of them,” he shouts. “Saudis, Chechens, Turks, yes, there were Iraqis too. Their Islamist beliefs are corrupted by something that comes from the time before Islam – from the time of the ‘jahaliya’, the time of ‘ignorance’ before the Prophet. They want to push us back to that.”

Al-Yasaari knew who his enemies were. And his friends. But – and this is a common theme in the Shia south of Iraq – does his government care enough for him? The men of the Shia militias who helped to rescue the Iraqi government army as Isis advanced on Baghdad complain bitterly that their government cares little for them, that the most many families of “martyrs” received is a patch of land far away from the rivers of Iraq where nothing would grow.

All armies expect to return from victory to be greeted as heroes. The British failure to keep that promise to the veterans of the First World War led to massive social upheaval. The families of the dead expect that their men will be forever honoured.

‘We are not regretting his death’: Abbas Saadi, father of dead Shia soldier Maher Saadi in his home in Kerbala (Maher Soltan)

Abbas Saadi lost his 23-year old son Maher on 7 July 2015, at the same battle of Bayji where Al-Yasaari was wounded for the second time four days earlier. “I received a call from him 15 minutes before he was killed,” Abbas Saadi says. “We talked a lot on the phone. I said I missed him. He was a waiter in a local restaurant before he joined the ‘Hashd al-Shaabi’ [the ‘Popular Army’]. Every time he came home on leave, he said he was sorry he had not been martyred on the battlefield.”

If you do not know the Shia history of martyrdom, of the Imams Ali and Hussein and of Abbas on the eight century fields around where the golden shrines of Kerbala and Najaf now stand, it is tempting to dismiss such remarks. What First World War soldier returned on leave to express his hope for death? But many returned willingly to the trenches, and their gravestones spoke – though we might not believe it – of “giving their lives”. So I ask Abbas Saadi about Maher with some trepidation: was it worth it?

Killed by an Isis sniper as he brought food to his comrades: a portrait of ‘martyr’ Maher Saadi on the wall of his father’s home (Maher Soltan)

“We are not regretting his death – because he was following the fatwa,” he replies slowly. “We don’t feel sorry. The fatwa was for all Iraqis.” I thought of the word “duty” – in the British military sense – although Maher’s death was curiously prosaic. “There was a lull in the battle and he went to get some food. He was bringing a watermelon when an Isis sniper shot him in the chest, just to the left of his heart. He was pronounced dead after 10 minutes.”

And Abbas Saadi bewailed his lack of funds. The government, he says, has done little to compensate him for his son. “They were supposed to give us a piece of land,” he says. “But the one we got was in the desert, there was nothing there, just sand. The Iranians look after their martyrs’ families [from the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war]. The holy shrine people look after us. But when we are in Baghdad and go to government offices and produce the papers showing our loss, they just tell us to put it back in our pocket.”