Tourists in Iraq? Maybe not just yet...

An Italian tourist was caught on a bus from Baghdad to the notorious city of Falluja in Iraq.

“I am a tourist,” were his first words. The telephone line from Falluja was bad, but there could be no mistake. Falluja’s first Western leisure visitor was in town.
Not for long, though. An Iraqi checkpoint guard spotted the traveler, Luca Marchio, among Iraqi passengers in a public minibus. (..)

“I am a tourist. I want to see the most important cities in the country. That is the reason why I am here now,” he said in heavily accented English. “I want to see and understand the reality because I have never been here before, and I think every country in the world must be seen.” (..)

The Italian Embassy in Baghdad established that Mr. Marchio had traveled from Italy to Egypt, then to Turkey, and from there to northern Iraq over land. A photocopy of his passport shows that he obtained a 10-day visa and crossed the border from Turkey to Kurdistan. (Full)

Courageous or nuts?

Discovered via Paul from Humanitarian Info.
Picture courtesy Michael Kamber (The New York Times)