Journalist, The Independent's Middle East correspondent

Born in County Cork (Ireland) in 1951, Patrick Cockburn became the Financial Times’ first Middle East correspondent in 1979 and, since 1991, has occupied the same post at The Independent. Prior to that, he was correspondent for Washington and Moscow. Since 2003, he has written regularly for the London Review of Books.

He has recently received several awards for his work as a journalist, including the Orwell Prize for Journalism in 2009. In 2013 he was named Foreign Commentator of the Year in the Editorial Intelligence Comment Awards and, in 2014, Foreign Affairs Journalist of the Year in the British Journalism Awards, as well as Foreign Reporter of the Year (The Press Awards).

As an eminent journalist specialising in the Middle East, he has written several books on the region, in particular concerning the recent history of Iraq and Jihadi terrorism. Notable among them are:

• The Jihadis Return: ISIS and the New Sunni Uprising (2014, subsequently titled The Rise of Islamic State: Isis and the New Sunni Revolution);
• Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia revival, and the Struggle for Iraq (2008).
• The Occupation: War and Resistance in Iraq (2006);
• Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein (co-authored with Andrew Cockburn, 1999);
• Getting Russia Wrong: The End of Kremlinology (1989).

[Last update: May 2015]