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Ian Cobain

Ian Cobain is an author and journalist. He was previously a senior reporter for the Guardian

April 2024

  • PALESTINIAN-ISRAEL-CONFLICT-RABBI<br>Israeli soldiers deploy near a Palestinian house during a raid to find Mohamed Fakih, a Hamas militant accused of murdering an Israeli rabbi earlier this month, in the village of Surif, north of the West Bank city of Hebron on July 27, 2016. Mohamed Fakih was killed and several other people were arrested in the hours-long raid. The July 1 attack saw a car targeted by gunfire south of Hebron, leading to a crash that killed the rabbi and wounded three family members. Hebron is the scene of frequent tensions in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Several hundred Israeli settlers live in the heart of the city under heavy military guard among around 200,000 Palestinians. / AFP / HAZEM BADER (Photo credit should read HAZEM BADER/AFP via Getty Images)

    Does Counter-Terrorism Work? by Richard English review – a thoughtful and authoritative analysis

    The Belfast academic offers vitally important lessons about government strategies, from Northern Ireland to the Middle East, warning that few campaigns are a complete success

November 2023

  • The O’Dowds’ abandoned farmhouse, Ballydougan

    Book of the day
    Dirty Linen by Martin Doyle review – growing up in Northern Ireland’s ‘murder triangle’

    The Irish author’s painstakingly researched account of the sectarian killings that blighted his childhood in Tullylish, County Down, is among the most moving works on the conflict

September 2023

  • Uneasy alliance: Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams outside the Houses of Parliament after being elected MPs in 1997.

    The Long Game: Inside Sinn Féin review – from the Provos to the promised land?

    Aoife Moore conducts a painstaking study of the party and its leading figures, revealing Sinn Féin’s future prospects and complicated relationship with the IRA

May 2023

  • composite: Liam Holden (foreground) and Crumlin Road Gaol in Belfast (background)

    The Audio Long Read
    ‘The torture’s real. The time I did was real’: the Belfast man waterboarded by the British army – podcast

    Liam Holden went to prison for 17 years on the basis of a confession he made after being tortured by British soldiers in 1972. Now the government is making it harder for people like him to get justice

April 2023

  • Composite image: Liam Holden pictured in 2012, against a backdrop of Crumlin Road Gaol in Belfast.

    The long read
    ‘The torture’s real. The time I did was real’: the Belfast man waterboarded by the British army

  • British army troops during rioting on Belfast’s Falls Road in 1976

    Observer book of the week
    Operation Chiffon by Peter Taylor review – how they talked their way out of the Troubles

August 2021

  • Gary Haggarty

    The Audio Long Read
    From the archives: How many murders can a police informer get away with? – podcast

    This week, from 2018: Last year Northern Irish paramilitary Gary Haggarty pleaded guilty to hundreds of violent crimes, including many killings – while working for the British state. By Ian Cobain

December 2020

  • The Troubles Archive<br>BELFAST, UNITED KINGDOM - 1st AUGUST: Children playing amongst debris from hijacked burning vehicles after riots in West Belfast during The Troubles, Northern Ireland in August 1976. (Photo by Alain Le Garsmeur/Getty Images)

    The Audio Long Read
    Life during wartime: how west Belfast became the frontline of the Troubles – podcast

    Acts of state violence, and repeated official denials, drove some Northern Irish Catholics to armed resistance. But not everyone in west Belfast supported the IRA’s methods

November 2020

  • Children playing among debris after riots in west Belfast in 1976.

    The long read
    Life during wartime: how west Belfast became the frontline of the Troubles

    The long read: Acts of state violence, and repeated official denials, drove some Northern Irish Catholics to armed resistance. But not everyone in west Belfast supported the IRA’s methods

June 2020

  • War and Conflict, Mau May Uprising, Kenya, East Africa, pic: circa 1954, Members of the Devon Regiment assisting police in searching homes at Karoibangi where they are looking for Mau Mau terrorists, round up local people for interrogation (Photo by Popperfoto/Getty Images)

    Lying about our history? Now that's something Britain excels at

    Ian Cobain
    Millions of records about empire, the slave trade and the cold war were hidden or destroyed by the British state, says author Ian Cobain

August 2018

  • Theresa May apologised for Britain’s role in the kidnap and torture of Abdel Hakim Belhaj and his wife.

    British government misses own torture inquiry deadline

  • Scotland Yard

    Home Office pressed for details over use of child spies

  • Floral tributes are left in Warham Street in Camberwell, south London, where Moscow17 rapper Incognito was killed on Wednesday.

    Mars pulls adverts from YouTube over drill rap video placement

  • Siddique Kamara rapping as Incognito

    London drill rapper killed in knife attack admitted music's effect on crime

July 2018

  • Margaret Thatcher

    Labour: government must say if blacklists are still in place

  • Militant Tendency member

    'Subversive' civil servants secretly blacklisted under Thatcher

  • Future prime minister James Callaghan, right, with the serving PM Harold Wilson during the Labour party conference in Blackpool 1975.

    Wilson government used secret unit to smear union leaders

  • Alec Douglas-Home

    PM was not told Anthony Blunt was Soviet spy, archives reveal

  • David Davis brands use of child spies ‘morally repugnant’

  • Street violence: 'For them, using a knife may seem rational'

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