Here’s a must-read piece by Alissa J. Rubin at the LA Times about Baghdad’s airport road, the seven-mile stretch of highway where the car carrying Giuliana Sgrena was fired upon by US troops, killing Italian military intelligence officer Nicola Calipari: Traveling on a Highway of Dread. (Hat tip: globalcop.)

Alissa Rubin traveled this same route only a few hours before Sgrena, and her account makes one thing exceedingly clear: this is a rough seven miles, and anyone driving this road had to know it.

“See, that’s where there was an IED,” my driver Ahmad said, using the military’s shorthand for improvised explosive device. “You can see the pit,” he said gesturing to a crater.

He pointed to the charred shell of a car sitting a few feet off the shoulder. “See that, that’s a bomb car,” he said.

“Last summer I was here, driving from the airport, and suddenly, ‘Boom!’ A Humvee ahead of us was hit. I said, ‘It’s OK, it’s OK’ and then everyone began shooting — the Americans, the Iraqis over there,” he said, gesturing to the nearby neighborhood.

On this route, it’s hard to know whether a car that speeds by a military convoy simply has a nervous driver, or carries a suicide bomber. Last fall, a bomber on the road targeted an armored bus carrying U.S. personnel. No one was killed, but the bus was damaged. Often passing civilians are injured or die in the attacks.

One of the mosques near the beginning of the route, Ibn Taymiyah, is well known as an insurgent center. When U.S. soldiers searched it, they found grenades, ammunition and guns. Farther on is a neighborhood named Jihad and another named Furat, where former intelligence officers under Saddam Hussein live.

“Very tough place,” declared Ahmad.

But Giuliana Sgrena told TIME Magazine: “We all incredibly laughed. It was liberating.”

The Americans have tried to make it difficult for insurgents to operate along the road. They have chopped down palm trees and taken down fences that the rebels hid behind. They have put up observation cameras. They have handed out leaflets and warned people who live in the area not to collaborate with insurgents. But the insurgents keep finding new ways to attack.

On Friday, a military convoy sped by. We stopped, letting it go far ahead. Next we sighted two SUVs that looked like they might be carrying security contractors. Again we slowed, for fear that insurgents might target them.

Suddenly Ahmad sped up, barreling down the rough highway at nearly 80 mph. My worries about insurgents and skittish U.S. soldiers quickly turned to fears of an accident as he honked to get cars to move out of the way.

He believed we were being followed. A burgundy car with three men in it was visible in our rearview mirror, speeding close behind us. We couldn’t tell if they were armed.

Finally, we lost them and slowed down. As we drew up to our hotel, we saw the car again — it had been the chase car of another news organization. The misplaced suspicion would have been funny, if the situation had not been so dangerous.

The Italians were on the road at a far worse time. Although there are few attacks at night, there is also little visibility, and the U.S. military suspects every vehicle.

Like us, Sgrena must have been frightened of being on the road. But having just escaped from insurgents, she probably never would have thought she would be mistaken for one of them.