Multiple award-winning writer and broadcaster Sam Kiley is among the most experienced war correspondents in the Anglosphere. He’s covered conflicts for more than 30 years ranging from Somalia’s famine and civil war, the Rwandan genocide, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, the Palestinian Territories, and spent most of the last two years covering eastern Ukraine. Essayist, and author of “Desperate Glory”. He’s probably the only foreign correspondent trained in mime. He’s been shot, kidnapped and been seconds from execution.
His contacts in the world of espionage and terrorism are extensive. Years of being at the sharp end of history has taught him that most conflicts begin due to a lack of small “i” intelligence among leaders; and soon become businesses that are difficult to wind up.
He has been a Senior International Correspondent at CNN, Foreign Affairs, and earlier Defence and Security Editor, at Sky News, Africa Correspondent of The Times, Middle East Bureau Chief of The Times, and has made more than 30 documentaries for Channel 4 and Frontline in the US.
His views and his live reports are known for being provocative, and often uncomfortable to hear, but they are informed by decades of reporting on the worst, and best, humanity has to offer.
Kiley has been based in Nairobi, Johannesburg, Jerusalem and Abu Dhabi. He is the only journalist to have completed a full front-line tour with Nato troops in Afghanistan where he also reported on both the defeat, and 20 years later, the victory of the Taleban.
Like many of the UK’s most idiotic politicians of the 21st Century he was educated at Oxford University. He’s an occasional horseman and an amateur mushroom hunter. He speaks poor French and execrable Swahili.
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Recent Articles
UK's suspension of arms exports to Israel may be good for....Israel. Opinion piece in the "i" Newspaper.
Kenya and Tanzanian habituated elephants in danger from hunters - in the "i" Newspaper.
Spectator Diary - will the ANC win the elections, again?
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-do-south-africans-still-support-the-anc/
Russia has gained most from Hamas atrocities and the horrors in Gaza:
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/israel-ukraine-militay-support-2998145
How war in Ukraine can, and probably will, bring catastrophe to the West:
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/we-are-dangerously-close-to-doomsday-this-is-how-it-plays-out-2886342?ito=copy-link_share_article-top
Aid to Israel and the Palestinians has helped the occupation and slowed down peace:
https://inews.co.uk/opinion/years-of-foreign-aid-have-made-the-gaza-conflict-worse-2932782?ito=copy-link_share_article-top
Ukraine - a warning from the front line - war is coming to the West
https://inews.co.uk/news/world/europe-prepare-war-ukraine-2920583?ico=more_from_this_author
Morale falls but Ukraine fights on - a frontline dispatch
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ukraines-frontline-heroes-are-at-their-lowest-ebb-k3d2h8mt5
I was kidnapped in Iraq
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/i-let-go-of-life/
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Documentaries and TV
I made two documentary series for Sky One, numerous Dispatches and Unreported World films for Channel 4, CNN an PBS. A selection here:
Inside Putin’s Russia - a foreboding
https://www.quicksilvermedia.tv/productions/railway-of-bones
We expose the continued legacy of Rwanda’s genocide in the DRC
https://www.quicksilvermedia.tv/productions/congo-children-of-the-genocide
Child trafficking and prostitution exposed in India
https://vimeo.com/2767234
Mercenaries in Afghanistan - very weird interview in prison with notorious Jack Idema:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCe2mso-uWc
DB Cooper - the thief who escaped by parachute!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uDbGqdHA7Iw
Iraq under Saddam Hussein - Kiley threatens an Iraqi security agent
https://www.hardcashproductions.com/project/truth-and-lies-in-baghdad/
The jungles will fight back - and kill us all!
https://edition.cnn.com/videos/world/2020/12/24/coming-contagion-congo-sam-kiley-doc-intl-ldn-vpx.cnn
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Books and Podcasts
Economist “Book of the Year”. I spent a full six month tour with 16 Air Assault Brigade - this is their story, not mine “DESPERATE GLORY”:
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/desperate-glory-9781408813423/
On being kidnapped - PODCAST “In the Line of Fire” with Ramita Navai:
https://podcasts.apple.com/sg/podcast/sam-kiley-it-wasnt-a-question-of-talking-your-way/id1616542881?i=1000562033323
Journey Through Jordan - travel book:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Journey-Through-Jordan/dp/1874041547
ANTHOLOGIES
“Eau de Cadavre” on how famine affects your appetite in “Eating Mud Crabs in Kandahar” : https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520385757/eating-mud-crabs-in-kandahar#:~:text=About%20the%20Book,during%20the%20past%20twenty%20years.
On Mushroom hunting in “Simple Pleasures” here: https://blackwells.co.uk/bookshop/product/Simple-Pleasures-by-Ivo-Dawnay-National-Trust-Great-Britain/9781847946416
Essay in “Oxford Originals” here: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Oxford-Originals-Anthology-Margaret-1879-2001/dp/0954092902