A FORMER island resident is flying the Guernsey flag while risking his life in war-torn Iraq.

Forty-five-year-old Paul Davies (pictured) is stationed in the Red Zone – the heart of troubled Baghdad – as a convoy escort for the US military.

He has worked there since May 2004 as a convoy escort and in private security, dealing with personnel involved in the reconstruction of Iraq.

Sewn on his uniform is a Guernsey flag badge, especially for his young grandson who still lives in the island. It had been hard to track one down, he said, but he was proud to wear it.

‘No one has recognised it so far but I have been accused of being Swiss by a US colonel,’ he said. ‘The Guernsey flag was really for young Sean.’

The Guernsey emblem is not the only flag Mr Davies wears – he also has the cross of St George, superimposed with three lions, on his flame-retardant suit.

Mr Davies’ time in the war zone has not been an easy ride.

‘I have been blown up twice by roadside bombs, ambushed, sniped at and had hand grenades thrown at me,’ he said.

‘I’ve been mortared, rocketed and attacked at the villas where we live in Baghdad by four cars full of insurgents armed with machine guns.’

In the last five years he has worked from Basra and Baghdad, and also spent time in Kurdistan.