Babak Dehghanpisheh

Who is Babak Dehghanpisheh?

Babak Dehghanpisheh, born January 2, 1972, is Newsweek magazine's Baghdad Bureau Chief. He has been covering Iraq regularly for the past five years. During that time, Dehghanpisheh reported on events ranging from Saddam Hussein's capture to the rise of Shiite clerics and Iraq's first elections. He was embedded with one of the first Marine units that invaded Falluja in late 2004 and was also one of the few journalists who got inside Abu Ghraib prison shortly after the scandal broke.

Before going to Iraq, Dehghanpisheh reported extensively on America's war on terror. He was one block away from the north tower of the World Trade Center when it collapsed and was dispatched to Afghanistan a few weeks later. He spent the next year reporting from Afghanistan and Pakistan, tracing the steps of Al Qaeda fighters in Tora Bora and following the development of the new Afghan government.

In the past six years, Dehghanpisheh has frequently reported from Iran and he co-authored a cover-length profile of Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Dehghanpisheh has also reported from Syria, Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon, where he filed from the front lines with Hezbollah guerrillas during the war with Israel in summer 2006.