"No iron can enter the human heart as chillingly as a full stop placed at the right time." - Isaac Babel
Top story for Vanity Fair’s homepage: “In 2008 The Hurt Locker introduced the Americans who defuse explosives in Iraq. Now that all US troops will be gone by 2012, meet the Iraqi soldiers left carrying the fuse.”
Photograph by Kamaran Najm/Metrography
Can the thrill of frontline reporting offset the pressure of a desk job?
Richard Pendry interviews me in this five-minute film for The Daily Beast, examining the risks and rewards of embedding with an Iraqi police unit.
Photograph by Kamaran Najm/Metrography
Kirkuk’s anti-terrorist police ride around in battered pickup trucks, keeping a nervous lookout for the bombers that have killed scores of their colleagues. With the American military eying an exit from Iraq, the force has become a central player in a seemingly intractable conflict over land and oil.
I accompanied the officers as they carried out overnight raids in pursuit of an insurgent cell linked to al-Qaeda.
Photographs by Kamaran Najm/Metrography
Neil Arun 
