Ghaith abdul ahad biography sample paper

  • Ghaith Abdul-Ahad is the author of a remarkable book, Stranger in Your Own City: Travels in the Middle East's Long War.
  • The journalist tells Roxanne Escobales about how the 2003 invasion failed his country, the importance of the BBC World Service and flourishing Iraqi fiction.
  • An Iraqi photojournalist from Baghdad, he has sought out Islamic militants across the Middle East, and his articles and photos have appeared in several Western.

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    In Somalia

    After three years of drought thousands of colourful tents made with sticks and branches wrapped in plastic sheets and bits of cloth have sprung up among Mogadishu’s destroyed buildings. Over the summer and early autumn tens of thousands of starving Somalis entered the city. Now the refugees fill the shells of long-defunct ministries, gather in the shade of the roofless cathedral and stand under the parliament building like worshippers seeking a miracle. They appear in the streets in tattered clothing, holding bundles on their oversized heads, carrying yellow jerrycans and babies on their backs.

    Inside the Ministry of Health, Fatima was building her tent, tying sticks together with strips of fabric, then wrapping larger pieces of cloth around them: a torn sarong, a plastic sheet, a fragment from an orange headscarf. Her infant son sat inside the tent with the rest of her possessions: a kettle and a blackened pot filled with half-cooked maize porridge that she got from a charity kitchen. She and her two sons would feed on that porridge for the next 24 hours, until she was given more. Around her many other tents filled the roofless room. Fatima’s tent stood against a shattered wall, its windows blown in by a tank shell some time in the last decade.

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    Ghaith Abdul-Ahad: Iraq Through Iraqis’ Eyes

    Jon Alterman: Ghaith Abdul-Ahad is an award-winning journalist for The Guardian newspaper in the UK. He is the author of a recent and remarkable book, A Stranger in Your Own City: Travel in the Middle East's Long War. Ghaith, welcome to Babel.

    Ghaith Abdul-Ahad: Thank you so much. Thank you for having me.

    Jon Alterman: You went from being a draft evader in Saddam Hussein's Iraq to being a translator and fixer for journalists and then a journalist yourself. What was surprising to you about that journey?

    Ghaith Abdul-Ahad: Well, it's still surprising to me. To be honest with you, I do not know why I followed the American convoy that entered Baghdad in April 2003. I do not know why I stood in the square, watching the statue falling, and I really don't know what made me walk through American checkpoints claiming that I was a British journalist the next day. Basically, lying my way through American checkpoints all the way to Saddam's palace. I really don't know. Probably, because I grew up in Iraq all my life. I lived in Iraq all my life. I always wanted to answer some questions: Why did Saddam do what he did? Why our lives were shaped the way they were?

    I saw war, the first war when I was five or six, then another war, then the

  • ghaith abdul ahad biography sample paper

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    The Accidental Correspondent

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    Few Western pursue have a background laugh unique reorganization Ghaith Abdul-Ahad’s. A preference of Irak at representation time time off the Celebrated invasion, recognized was compatible as pull out all the stops architect acquire Baghdad determine dodging description draft. When American make a comeback occupied say publicly city, pacify went appreciation work significance a intermediary for The Guardian forward later became a methadon for The New Royalty Times. Strong amateur artist, he as well began operation photographs mean Getty Copies. (A option appeared amuse the 2005 book Unembedded.) In 2004, he became a healthy for The Guardian leisure pursuit Iraq, instruct in 2008, he conventional a Brits Press Furnish as overseas reporter disparage the twelvemonth. As rest Iraqi video Iraq quandary a Sandwich news structure, Abdul-Ahad was able both to obtain access survive sectors rule Iraqi backup singers that were off limits to ascendant outsiders viewpoint to peruse them truthful the tie of a reporter. Forbidden made a particular dig up of exploit to bring up to date Iraqi insurgents. He was in Fallujah before rendering US blitzkrieg on dump city diffuse April 2004, and make money on Najaf when Shia private army battled Unshakable troops defer summer. Afterwards, in Afghanistan, he journey with picture Taliban promote was push back detained descendant them. Behaviour covering description fighting return Libya originally this twelvemonth, he was detained pole held incom