As a freelance journalist for major international publications, including The Financial Times, The Sunday Times and The Spectator, I have covered many stories and reported from Iraq and Afghanistan.

In Kabul I interviewed the head of the Nato forces, and in 1999 wrote about 'jihad on the streets of London'. I secured the first interview with General Tim Cross, General Jay Garner's British deputy in the lead up to the invasion in Iraq. My story on Ahmad Chalabi, who became one of Iraq's deputy prime ministers, was a cover story in the Financial Times magazine. I interviewed Princess Anne for The Mail on Sunday.

Apart from foreign affairs I also write general features – covering everything from mental health in Afghanistan to Kabul chic, hating Paris (a city of despair not love), to female bus drivers in Iran. For the Saturday Star in Johannesburg I wrote a weekly column in which I covered politics and gender issues, as well as occasional social observation and light-hearted pieces – such as turning into an 'Angloholic' on my return from Baghdad.

I have also written for the Guardian, the Observer, the Spectator, New Statesman, Prospect, the Sunday Independent, The Star (Johannesburg), I the Jerusalem Report, Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday, News of the World, Le Temps (Geneva), Vogue, the Independent, the Scotsman, the Times, Xinhua (China), The Middle East, British Journalism Review, the Mirror Group, The Jewish Chronicle, The Big Issue, The Jerusalem Post, The Globe and Mail (Toronto), The National Post (Toronto), Readers Digest, Punch and many more.

I gave an informal briefing to the House of Commons Defense Committee on March 17, 2011