We’ve lost a powerful voice in the battle against Islamic supremacism: Italy’s controversial journalist Fallaci dies.

MILAN (Reuters) - Oriana Fallaci, one of Italy’s best-known journalists and war correspondents who shocked the literary world with a vitriolic assault on Islam after the September 11 attacks on the United States, died on Friday aged 77.Fallaci died in her home town of Florence after battling cancer for several years, a hospital official said.

Aggressive and provocative until the end, Fallaci made her name as a tenacious interviewer of some of the most famous leaders of the 20th century.

They included Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, Iranian revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.

She covered wars in Vietnam, the Middle East, and Latin America at a time when few women braved the front lines, and was shot and beaten in 1968 during student demonstrations in Mexico.