Rageh Omaar was born in Mogadishu, Somalia in 1967, and moved to Britain as a child. He was educated at Cheltenham Boys College and later Oxford University where he gained a BA Honours in Modern History.
Local to global
His journalistic career began in 1990 as a trainee at The Voice newspaper in Brixton, London, before moving to City Limits magazine. He then freelanced as a foreign correspondent in Ethiopia, with much of his work being broadcast by the BBC World Service.
He became a household name in 2003 as the BBC's 'Man in Baghdad'. His reports from the beleaguered Iraqi capital became a regular feature on news bulletins in the UK and around the world. Many of his broadcasts were syndicated across the United States, where the Washington Post labelled him the 'Scud Stud'.
Documenting history
He has presented a range of documentaries, including a number of reports for Channel 4's Dispatches series, and took part in the coverage of the fifth Anniversary of the Iraq war in March 2008 for both Al Jazeera and the BBC.
As well as presenting a daily documentary strand called Witness for Al Jazeera, Rageh Omaar has recently worked on a number of special programmes for television including The Abolition of Slavery for BBC2 and Welcome To Tehran for BBC4.
His first book, Revolution Day, drew on the diaries he kept while in Iraq. His latest book, Only Half of Me: Being a Muslim in Britain, was published in 2006.
