Unlike most journalists, Ziad al-Ajili carries an AK-47 assault rifle with him wherever he goes at night. The head of the Iraqi Journalistic Freedom Observatory, al-Ajili can't walk down the street without turning around every time he hears footsteps.

"It's too dangerous for journalists," says al-Ajili in a phone interview from Baghdad. "It's especially dangerous if you're a western journalist, but even if you're an Iraqi journalist, you can be shot anytime you go outside."