Families scraped together money and jewelry for ransom to free a dozen Iraqi bird breeders kidnapped by ISIS, one father told NBC News on Tuesday. Abu Abdullah, father of one of the bird breeders, saw his 21-year-old son taken by the extremist group as punishment for breeding pigeons, a practice ISIS sees as un-Islamic. Abdullah's son returned home, beaten and bruised, after his father paid over $1,800 to the fighters. The family was warned to not keep pigeons in the home again.
