Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and war correspondent Peter Arnett has died at the age of 91, US media has reported.

Arnett won the international reporting prize in 1996 for his Vietnam War coverage at the Associated Press (AP). But he was also well known for his work at CNN, having become a household name while reporting on the first Gulf War.

His career spanned decades and covered several conflicts in countries including Iraq, Vietnam, and El Salvador.

The New Zealand-born journalist died on Wednesday surrounded by family and friends in California, his son told reporters. He was receiving hospice care for prostate cancer.

Arnett first worked for AP as a wire-service correspondent in Vietnam, from 1962 until the war's end in 1975, often accompanying troops on missions.

At a talk in 2013, he recalled the moment he witnessed a soldier being shot in Vietnam as he paused to read a map.

As the colonel peered at it, I heard four loud shots as bullets tore through the map and into his chest, a few inches from my face, Arnett told the American Library Association.

He sank to the ground at my feet.

The journalist left AP in 1981 to join US outlet CNN, where he later became known for his work on the first Gulf War.

He was one of the few Western reporters to stay in Baghdad, according to AP, with one of his first broadcasts from the city being interrupted by the sounds of missiles and air-raid sirens.

There was an explosion right near me, you may have heard, he once exclaimed live on-air.

While in Iraq, he interviewed then-president Saddam Hussein. Writing about the experience in the Roanoke Times, Arnett said he had decided to be as tough in my questioning as the situation would allow.

He continued: I was not intimidated by the prospect of encountering the man many had called 'The Butcher of Baghdad'. I figured he could do no worse to me than the constant bombing of Baghdad was threatening to do.

In 1997, Arnett became the first Western journalist to interview Osama Bin Laden at a secret hideout in Afghanistan, a few years before the 11 September 2001 attacks on the US.

Arnett later worked for NBC and was famously sacked by the broadcaster after giving an interview on Iraqi state television, in which he was seen as critical of US military strategy.

He was hired by the Daily Mirror hours later and said he was in shock at his dismissal.

I report the truth of what is happening here in Baghdad and will not apologise for it, he wrote in the UK paper.

Born in 1934 in Riverton, New Zealand, Arnett later naturalised as an American citizen and had lived in southern California since 2014.

Edith Lederer, a former colleague who still works at AP, stated: Peter Arnett was one of the greatest war correspondents of his generation - intrepid, fearless, and a beautiful writer and storyteller.

His reporting in print and on camera will remain a legacy for aspiring journalists and historians for generations to come.

Despite his passing, Arnett’s legacy as a pioneering journalist will endure, greatly influencing the field of war reporting.