'Outside the gate, it's the wild west. We are basically a taxi service with guns'

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Four of the five British hostages kidnapped in Iraq worked for a private security firm. A former special forces soldier who returned from Baghdad earlier this week tells Audrey Gillan about his life as a 'private security detail' operating in one of the most dangerous cities in the world. He is 42 and lives in Surrey. He has asked to remain anonymous

The day starts at different times when you work as private security detail (PSD) in Iraq, depending on what the operation is. Certainly, if we have to go out of the GZ then we can't leave before a certain time in the morning because there are curfews. We don't tend to travel at night and we always wait for first light.

We will have our breakfast - our new chef does good pancakes with scrambled eggs and I'll have some bacon and sausage if I can get it - and I'll listen to a bit of BBC Radio 7, some Steptoe and Son or another comedy maybe. We live in a five-bedroom villa in Baghdad, it's rented from a former Ba'ath party member and costs about $15,000 (£7,600) a month. It's probably the most expensive real estate in the world. Our company has got two villas, and there are about 30 people living between them.

It all really starts the day before when you get the tasking and you can look at how to go about it. At the briefing, the team that protects an individual will get orders for that move and you will fully discuss it and make sure that everything you are going to do on that journey is covered.

We have a number of different agencies that supply information that we rely on and we work with local nationals and they have real-time experience of what's going on over there. Listening to the news is very important.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,,2091805,00.html