I suppose, in the end, we journalists try - or should try - to be the first impartial witnesses of history. If we have any reason for our existence, the least must be our ability to report history as it happens so that no one can say: 'we didn't know - no one told us.'

Clinton impressed Assad: a young man who appeared to want to be neutral in the Arab-Israeli dispute - an illusion of course, but that's what Assad thought.

Bin Laden was very keen to point out to me that his forces had fought the Americans in Somalia. He also wanted to talk about how many mullahs in Pakistan were putting up posters saying, "We follow bin Laden." He even produced a sort of Kodak set of snapshots of graffiti supporting him.

It is always an eerie experience to sit among Bashar al-Assad's soldiers.

I do not make stories up, full stop.

The sheer violence of it, the howl of air raid sirens and the air-cutting fall of the missiles carried its own political message; not just to President Saddam but to the rest of the world. We are the superpower, those explosions said last night. This is how we do business.

People turn to violence, because they have no other avenue left.