'The Man From Baghdad' offers readers the privilege of a glimpse into a poignant timely, yet historic memoir.Unforgettable descriptions of Bedouin life, guffas as well as tribal savagery and family ties told through the eyes of one who experienced all these and much more. Widad has told these stories to family and friends over the years, and with much urging documented these tales to share with a wider audience. This memoir will likely change your views of what you thought you knew about Iraq.

As the C-130 transport aircraft circled Baghdad in preparation for landing, Jack Armstrong, the forty-three year old seasoned intelligence operative, fastened his seatbelt for a mission he never bargained for. Armstrong soon discovers that his many years of working undercover in the Middle East haven't prepared him for the transformative journey he begins to make once he steps foot on the ground in Baghdad. Throughout the mission, Armstrong finds himself engaged in an upside-down interior labyrinth: struggles with his deeply held moral and religious convictions; conflicts within his work for the C.I.A. in Iraq; his love for Iraqi medical doctor Haifa al-Hashimi; commitments he cannot keep to his wife and children in the States; and the ideals and policies that he has always defended working for the U.S. government that don't seem to 'fit' any longer. Armstrong is partnered up with middle-aged Iraqi informant, Daoud al-Hassan, a pensive former victim of torture from the old regime, full of old-world wisdom and common sense survival tactics who gets Armstrong out of many a tight circumstance. Colin MacPhearson, an old friend from British Intelligence, joins Armstrong and Daoud in their pursuit of 'Jabbar' - the symbol of all this is evil and the ultimate target of the mission. The characters, conflicts, carnage and circumstances that Jack Armstrong becomes enmeshed in make for not only an action-packed drama but a study in the common denominators that make us all human. It offers a front-row center seat to the real-life story of today's Iraq through the eyes of Jack Armstrong and the circle of humanity around him. It presents a human face to the Iraqi people and 'their story'. But the real 'man from Baghdad' is not revealed until the very end of the story - or is it the beginning?

An on-the-ground commander describes his brigade's first year in Iraq after the U.S. forces seized Baghdad in the spring of 2003, and explains what went right and wrong as the U.S. military confronted an insurgency, in a firsthand analysis of success and failure in Iraq.

In the months leading up to the American invasion of Iraq, this New Yorker correspondent “embedded’ himself among the people of Baghdad and, along with a small number of other Western reporters, rode out the entire invasion and much of the subsequent occupation from inside the city. Jon Lee Anderson’s dispatches from Baghdad were immediately and widely recognized as the most important writing anyone was doing on the war anywhere, for any publication. In recognition of its significance, The New Yorker routinely held the magazine open an extra day and set up a special production team to deal with the pieces; around the office, comparisons to John Hersey’s fabled article “Hiroshima” were flying. The Fall of Baghdad is not a collection of New Yorker pieces, though; it is an original and organically cohesive narrative work that tells the story of what the people of Baghdad have endured at the hands of Saddam Hussein, during the war and during its aftermath. This is not a pro- or anti-war book; the point is to bear witness to what the people in this city have endured, to put a human face on a calamity of epic dimensions. The focus alternates among a small cast of characters, a group of disparate Iraqis who allow Anderson to bring to life different facets of the story he wants to tell; and he fills in the canvas around his figures with rich background that makes their significance sing, and helps bind the book together as the definitive reckoning with one of the most fateful stories of our time.

Victoria is pursued by an unknown power that threatened not only her, but the fate of the entire world.

This unique anthology of Iraqi noir fiction collects fourteen original stories of crime, conspiracy, regret, and revenge in the capital of Iraq. The centuries-old city of Baghdad has known many rulers, many troubles, and many crimes. But while most Iraqis would agree that their life has always been noir, there has not been a literary tradition to capture this aspect of the culture. By commissioning the fourteen stories collected here—most by Iraqi writers, all by authors familiar with Baghdad—editor Samuel Shimon and Akashic Books have created what may be the first anthology of Iraqi crime fiction ever assembled. Here you will read of life in Baghdad both during and after the Saddam Hussein era, with stories of fear in the shadow of a ruthless dictator; kidnappings in the time of U.S. occupation; detectives who investigate political conspiracies; and tales of revenge, assassination, mental illness, and family struggle in the war-torn City of Peace. Baghdad Noir includes brand-new stories by Sinan Antoon, Ali Bader, Mohammed Alwan Jabr, Nassif Falak, Dheya al-Khalidi, Hussain al-Mozany, Layla Qasrany, Hayet Raies, Muhsin al-Ramli, Ahmed Saadawi, Hadia Said, Salima Salih, Salar Abdoh, and Roy Scranton.