For Iraqis, U.S. raids of pillage

On a scorching July night last year, the Abdullatif family was sleeping on the flat roof of their modest house to escape the heat. An explosion jolted them awake. U.S. troops on a counterinsurgency raid had blown open the front door. Military helicopters swooped down, so close they seemed almost to land on the roof.

U.S. troops armed with M-16s arrested Omar Abdullatif, then 17, his two brothers and their 63-year-old father, who suffers from dementia, as suspected terrorists.

As the troops searched the house, in Baghdad’s al-Alam neighborhood, they broke open the locked, wooden chest in the parents’ bedroom that held the family’s savings, the Abdullatifs said.

Ultimately the family was set free, unfortunately for them they say their jelewery and cash seems to have remained in the protective custody of whoever arrested it.

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