Marie Colvin in Basra

Last week Frontline Club member and Sunday Times journalist, Marie Colvin, became the first unembedded western journalist from a British newspaper to visit Basra for nearly two years. She worked under the cover of an abbaya. Nevertheless, Basra is an extremely dangerous place to work unembedded. So much so that one of Marie’s interviewees took no precautions when their interview was over,

“So worried was [Major-General Jalil Khalaf] for my safety at the end of my interview that he gave me four trucks of soldiers as an escort to the building I was staying in, and his personal Koran for extra safety. I was already forced to travel under cover of traditional abbaya for fear of identification as a westerner.” link via Defence of the Realm