The Martyrdom of Ahmad Shawkat

Ahmad Shawkat was an Iraqi Kurd who edited his own radical magazine—Bilattijah— after the fall of Saddam Hussein and who wrote enthusiastically about Iraq’s future as a state free from tyranny, secular and religious, having been imprisoned and tortured four times by the regime.

When Michael Goldfarb went to Iraq the cover the Second Gulf War for the US’s National Public Radio in 2003, Shawkat became his translator, guide and close friend. They planned to stay in touch after Saddam was toppled and Goldfarb returned home.

Their plans did not work out. Shortly after the USA declared victory, Shawkat was shot to death outside his office in Mosul by members of one of the Islamic terror groups he had railed about. His killers have never been caught but Goldfarb swore to memorialise Shawkat’s life in a book, first published in 2005, now republished under a new title. It is a tragic story of an Iraqi idealist and potential role model.