This may be the world’s deadliest job, but there’s ‘no choice except to join’

Afghanistan’s war is killing at a staggering rate. President Ashraf Ghani said in January that 45,000 soldiers and police officers had died in combat since late 2014.

Written by David Zucchino and Fahim Abed

Janat Bebe sent a son and two grandsons to the Afghan National Police force to fight the Taliban. All three returned home last year in coffins, borne up to a cemetery high above their mountainside village of mud and stone.

The village, Shemal, has only about 3,000 residents, but it has lost nearly 60 police officers and soldiers in combat, at once devastating and impoverishing the hamlet.

“They had no choice except to join, because we have no other way to earn a living here,” Bebe said of her son and grandsons. They left behind 17 children whom she must now feed, clothe and educate.

1m 38s

Foreign troops to quit Afghanistan: Taliban

Taliban officials say U.S. negotiators have agreed on a draft peace deal stipulating the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan within 18 months of the agreement being signed. Gavino Garay has the story.

Afghanistan’s war is killing at a staggering rate. President Ashraf Ghani said in January that 45,000 soldiers and police officers had died in combat since late 2014. In recent months, the pace has been 30 to 40 deaths a day, a toll that one senior US commander described to Congress as “not sustainable.”

In a country that has endured 40 years of war, each death is a fresh blow to families and communities that have already borne too much.