Robert Fisk, veteran Middle East correspondent and author, dies at 74

Veteran foreign correspondent Robert Fisk has died of a suspected stroke at the age of 74.

He was admitted to St Vincent's Hospital in Dublin after falling ill at his home on Friday, and died shortly afterwards, the Irish Times reported.

Fisk was famous for his reporting on the Middle East, where he reported from the 1970s.

He covered the wars in the Balkans, Middle East and North Africa for over five decades, the New York Times described him as "probably the most famous foreign correspondent in Britain" in 2005.

Born in Maidstone, Kent in 1946, he later took Irish citizenship and had a home in Dalkey near Dublin.

He started his career at the Sunday Express, and moved to Belfast in 1972 to cover the Troubles as Northern Ireland correspondent for The Times. He became the paper's Middle East correspondent in 1976.

Fisk was based in Beirut from where he reported on the country's civil war, the Iranian Revolution in 1979, the Soviet war in Afghanistan and the Iran-Iraq War.

He was one of the most highly regarded British foreign correspondents, reporting on the first Gulf War, and was one of few western journalists to have interviewed Osama Bin Laden.

Fisk married US journalist Lara Marlowe in 1994 but the couple divorced in 2006. He had no children.

• UK