964media General Director Hiwa Osman (right) interviews veteran BBC correspondent Jim Muir (left) during the premiere episode of 964media’s Table for Two podcast in Erbil.
Table for Two
Veteran BBC journalist Jim Muir reflects on five decades of Middle East reporting in new 964media podcast
ERBIL — In the premiere episode of 964media’s new Table for Two podcast, hosted by 964media Director General Hiwa Osman, legendary BBC journalist Jim Muir reflects on five decades of reporting from conflict zones across the Middle East.
Muir, once described by late Iraqi President Jalal Talabani as “the best journalist in the BBC,” recalled the start of Lebanon’s civil war in 1975 and his presence in Beirut on April 13, the day the fighting began.
“In 1975 on this day, I was in Beirut. I had already moved there about four months previously,” Muir said. At the time, he was covering regional stories for a small news agency.
Although the initial outbreak was viewed as an isolated incident, he said, the violence quickly escalated. Lebanon, then known as “the Switzerland of the Middle East,” soon descended into repeated clashes and failed ceasefires.
“You just got used to it being the backdrop of daily life,” Muir said, describing the surreal atmosphere of hearing gunfire during family lunches.
Reflecting on his broader career, Muir recalled his time opening the BBC office in Iran during the Khatami era in 1999. “There you really felt that you were at the cutting edge,” he said. “I was surprised how much freedom we had.” He covered social issues such as drugs and prostitution during a period of relative press openness.
Muir’s first entry into the Kurdistan Region came during the Kurdish uprising following Saddam Hussein’s defeat in Kuwait. Traveling with Talabani from Syria, whom he had first met in Beirut, Muir crossed into Iraqi Kurdistan in 1991 through what he described as a rain-soaked and muddy route.
“There was something like two or three million Kurds on the road,” he said, describing the mass exodus triggered by fears of chemical attacks. In one instance, he recalled broadcasting a dispatch from a remote house near Erbil’s Shaqlawa area: “I switched on the radio in the morning, and there was my dispatch.”
He said that moment stood out in his career. “This is probably the only moment in my reporting life that I actually felt that we really did something very important,” Muir said.
Speaking about the U.S.-led humanitarian operation known as Operation Provide Comfort, Muir said the urgency was real. “The pictures of, you know, hundreds of thousands of Kurds stuck in the mountains… these images, I think, had a big impact in the West,” he said. Muir added that then-British Prime Minister John Major reportedly viewed his reports before proposing the no-fly zone in Kurdistan. “That’s what Kak Masoud [Barzani] believes anyway,” he said.
On the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Muir recalled that Kurdish leaders seemed unusually well-informed ahead of the war. “Everybody here seemed to know that 2003 was going to happen,” he said. “Getting rid of Saddam is not the problem. It’s what’s going to come after,” he remembered KDP leader Masoud Barzani warning him.
One of Muir’s most traumatic experiences occurred during that war. While reporting near Kifri, his cameraman Kaveh Golestan was killed after entering a minefield.
“He jumped out and ran down deeper into this dip… and fell on another. It was a blood bath,” Muir said. He carried Golestan’s body out of the area himself.
Muir described the security situation in Baghdad during the 2000s as one of extreme danger. “On average, 100 bodies were being found every day… having been tortured to death,” he said. He and his team often remained in lockdown due to fears of kidnapping.
Turning to the evolution of journalism, Muir reflected on the need to adapt to new tools without sacrificing depth. He cited a 15,000-word article he wrote in 2016 for the BBC on the Islamic State group, which received strong engagement. “There is still a market for serious but engaging material,” he said.
“I never considered myself a war reporter. I regard myself as a Middle East reporter who did wars because they happened,” Muir said. He emphasized that lasting journalistic value comes from context: “You have to know the background. You have to know the history.”
