NPR's Baghdad bureau chief, Jamie Tarabay, has been living in and covering Iraq since December 2005. She spoke to Terry Gross in Fresh Air's Philadelphia studios, during a two-week break from her reporting duties.

Australian by birth and Lebanese by heritage, Tarabay speaks fluent Arabic and French. She lived for three years as a child in Beirut during the bombings there.

Before joining NPR she was a correspondent for the Associated Press, reporting from Southeast Asia, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt.

She's the author of the book A Crazy Occupation: Eyewitness to the Intifada.

Tarabay talks to Fresh Air about Iraq's internal politics, about the advantages and disadvantages of being a woman reporter in Iraq, and about the challenges of being a foreigner living and working in a chaotic society.

"There are layers and layers that I'm still trying to get my head around," she tells Terry Gross about the complexities of the various conflicts raging in Iraq.

In March 2007, Tarabay was riding in a military convoy that was struck by a roadside bomb. When it was over, she filed a previously scheduled story for that day's Morning Edition, then reported on the convoy bombing (see story below) for All Things Considered. "You try not to think about the fact that you almost just died," she tells Terry Gross.

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