My brush with death at the hands of a mob

For a few terrifying moments I thought I was going to be lynched. One pistol-waving Iraqi had already shot me, leaving a bullet lodged inches from my spine. Now a mob was convinced I was a British spy.

My ordeal came during an encounter with Shi'ite militiamen in Basra, and after being dragged and punched through the streets I feel very lucky to be alive.

I went to a prayer meeting with the permission of the leading sheikh, but as I was leaving a guy came up behind my translator and fired his pistol. It was like an almighty kick in the backside, but it was only later I found out a bullet had gone inside me.

Then supporters of outlawed cleric Moqtadr al-Sadr half-nelsoned and searched me, and I was marched off down the street. Eventually my translator returned with one of the sheikh's deputies We were bundled into a car and driven off to his HQ at high speed.

British Army medics later found a fully intact bullet inside me, which I now have in a plastic tube as a souvenir of my brush with a local fanatic - and of just how volatile Iraq can now be.