Ghaith Abdul-Ahad (Arabic: غيث عبدالأحد) (born in Baghdad, Iraq, 1975) is an Iraqi journalist who began working after the U.S. invasion and has written for The Guardian and Washington Post and published photographs in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, The Times (London), and other media outlets.[1] Besides reporting from his native Iraq, Abdul-Ahad has also reported from Somalia, Sudan, Afghanistan and Libya.
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Abdul-Ahad studied architecture at Baghdad University and had never traveled outside Iraq prior to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. As a deserter from Saddam Hussein's Iraqi army, he lived underground in Baghdad for six years, having to change his residence every few months in order to avoid detection and arrest. He began doing street photography in 2001 and was determined to document conditions in Baghdad during the war. This aroused suspicion, and he was arrested three days before the end of major combat operations, though he was able to escape by bribing his guards.
After the 2003 invasion of Iraq, Abdul-Ahad became a freelance photographer for Getty Images[2] and journalist, writing for the British The Guardian from 2004.[3] Abdul-Ahad was one of the last journalists to work in insurgent-held Fallujah before the American assault on that city in April 2004 and he continued to cover the front lines of both the Sunni and Shia insurgency movements. Additionally, he worked behind Mehdi Army front lines during the American assault on Najaf in August 2004 (Abdul-Ahad et al., 2005). In September 2004, Abdul-Ahad was wounded by shrapnel to his head when a U.S. helicopter fired rockets into a crowd of civilians on Baghdad's Haifa street. Of the six people seeking shelter from the attack behind a concrete cube serving as a street kiosk, Abdul-Ahad was the sole survivor.[4]
Abdul-Ahad has continued his work with the October 2005, release of the book Unembedded: Four Independent Photojournalists on the War in Iraq which features his photography along with that of Kael Alford, Thorne Anderson and Rita Leistner and documents the daily violence on the streets of Baghdad as well as the inside stories of Iraqi culture.
In 2005 he was shortlisted for the Gaby Rado Memorial Award, a category of the Amnesty Media Awards which recognises a journalist who has been covering human rights journalism for less than five years. He won the award in 2007. In the 2008 British Press Awards, he was the Foreign Reporter of the Year.[5]
Abdul-Ahad has also reported from Somalia, Sudan, and Afghanistan.[3] In October 2010 Abdul-Ahad was imprisoned for five days by the Taliban fighters he had gone to interview.[6]
In late February 2011 Abdul-Ahad entered Libya to report on the Libyan civil war. He was detained on 2 March by the Libyan Army in the town of Sabratha.[7] His traveling companion, Andrei Netto of O Estado de S. Paulo was released on 10 March,[8] with Netto attributing his release to the good relationship between Brazil and Libya.[7] On 13 March Amnesty International and others called for Abdul-Ahad to be released;[7] he was finally released on 16 March,[9] after the Turkish government assisted negotiations and editor Alan Rusbridger flew to Tripoli.[10]