Perspective: Iraqi insurgency hits home

A modern house in Baghdad.

Baghdad — I'M dialing my family home in west Baghdad.

The phone rings, but no one picks up.

I know that someone is living in our house.

But it's not my family.

Last summer, my mother went to Jordan to escape the violence in Iraq. In September, my father followed. I stayed behind. Although I am educated as an architect, I work as an interpreter for The Times.

I don't live in my childhood home, but with my parents gone, I keep an eye on the modest stucco house that was designed by a pioneer of Iraqi postmodernism, Mehdi Hassani.

In early January, I went on an assignment outside Baghdad. When I got back two weeks later, my mother sent me a text message from Jordan, telling me to check on our house. When I called our neighbor, Abu Adil, he told me armed men had come through the neighborhood telling everyone to leave or be "slaughtered."

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