WAR journalist Yvonne Ridley has had to postpone her return to Afghanistan after having her passport stolen in a mugging in London.

The 43-year-old former reporter with The Northern Echo, who survived unscathed despite being held captive by the Taliban for ten days, was kicked and punched as she tried to fight off her attacker.

The feisty reporter was on her way to a Soho rendezvous with a contact for her newspaper, The Sunday Express, when she was attacked in the early hours of Friday.

A man struck her on the head and tried to take her handbag but she fought back, screaming in his face to frighten him off. The mugger then kicked and punched Ms Ridley as she lay on the ground, before making off with her bag containing around £15, her passport, credit cards and papers.

She was left feeling shaken and with a bruised arm, but otherwise unhurt.

Last night, Ms Ridley said: "I'm a walking crime statistic. In the last six years since I came to London, I've had five car break-ins and two burglaries.

"I've been mugged twice, had two attempted thefts from my bag and had my purse stolen.

"This wouldn't happen in Newcastle."

Ms Ridley said she was disappointed that none of the several witnesses to the latest mugging did anything to help.

"In London, people are either too afraid to intervene or aren't interested," she added. "I think it would be safer in Afghanistan than wandering the streets of London."

Ms Ridley's mother Joyce, 74, of West Pelton, near Beamish, said: "Yvonne seems to attract trouble."

Her daughter's knack for getting into scrapes started as a young reporter. "Someone once poured oil on her car when she was at Consett Magistrates Court, so she's used to it," she said.

It is thought that CCTV cameras may have picked up the mugging, although the culprit has yet to be caught.

Ms Ridley's daughter Daisy, nine, was staying with her grandparents at the time