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    In Fallujah, A Young Amputee Dreams Of Returning To The U.S.

    Mustafa Abed lost his leg as a baby during the battle of Fallujah. A nonprofit arranged medical treatment for him in Oregon but then lost touch. With help from NPR's Jane Arraf, they have reconnected.
    by Jane Arraf Nov 01, 2017 6 minutes
    Mustafa Ahmed walks near home on the outskirts of Fallujah. As a baby, he was severely injured during the battle to liberate Fallujah from al-Qaida. His leg was amputated and he later received medical treatment in Portland, Oregon.

    Mustafa Ahmed Abed has a few words of English left from his time as a young child in the United States. These days, he doesn't have anyone to practice them with, so he repeats words to himself over and over as he walks home from school in Fallujah. With one leg, the journey on crutches takes him an hour.

    Mustafa, now almost 15, was two years old at the start of the battle for Fallujah in November 2004. As the U.S. shelled al-Qaida fighters in a nearby neighborhood, he and his mother were hit by shrapnel.

    "I was carrying him, and all of a sudden, Mustafa flew out of my arms," his mother Nidhal Aswad recalls. "My arm was badly injured and my side was injured ... He was on the ground ... All I could see of him were his intestines all over the place."

    Aswad crawled to her baby in the deserted street. His left leg had nearly been severed. When relatives got them to a hospital, making their way through

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