Leila Fadel
Leila Fadel is a national correspondent for NPR based in Los Angeles, covering issues of culture, diversity, and race.
Most recently, she was NPR's international correspondent based in Cairo and covered the wave of revolts in the Middle East and their aftermaths in Libya, Tunisia, Egypt, and beyond. Her stories brought us to the heart of a state-ordered massacre of pro-Muslim Brotherhood protesters in Cairo in 2013 when police shot into crowds of people to clear them and killed between 1,000 and 2,000 people. She told us the tales of a coup in Egypt and what it is like for a country to go through a military overthrow of an elected government. She covered the fall of Mosul to ISIS in 2014 and documented the harrowing tales of the Yazidi women who were kidnapped and enslaved by the group. Her coverage also included stories of human smugglers in Egypt and the Syrian families desperate and willing to pay to risk their lives and cross a turbulent ocean for Europe.
She was awarded the Lowell Thomas Award from the Overseas Press Club for her coverage of the 2013 coup in Egypt and the toll it took on the country and Egyptian families. In 2017 she earned a Gracie award for the story of a single mother in Tunisia whose two eldest daughters were brainwashed and joined ISIS. The mother was fighting to make sure it didn't happen to her younger girls.
Before joining NPR, she covered the Middle East for The Washington Post as the Cairo Bureau Chief. Prior to her position as Cairo Bureau Chief for the Post, she covered the Iraq war for nearly five years with Knight Ridder, McClatchy Newspapers, and later the Washington Post. Her foreign coverage of the devastating human toll of the Iraq war earned her the George. R. Polk award in 2007. In 2016 she was the Council on Foreign Relations Edward R. Murrow fellow.
Leila Fadel is a Lebanese-American journalist who speaks conversational Arabic and was raised in Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.
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Iranians who fled the country before the war with the U.S. and Israel are now watching it unfold, wondering what will happen when it ends.
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U.S.-Israel strikes continue as Iran effectively closes Strait of Hormuz, Trump ran on lower gas prices, but the Iran war challenges that, probe points to U.S. being at fault for Iran school strike.
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The latest on the Iran war and the growing oil crisis across the Middle East from Dubai, Iraq, Lebanon and Israel.
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U.S. strikes on Tehran intensify, Americans' views on Iran war, and Georgia special election heads to runoff.
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At a military camp in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, a commander tells NPR his armed opposition group is waiting for a chance to go into Iran.
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Trump hails Iran successes but offers no end date, Lebanon wants talks with Israel, and two teens are charged in NYC attack attempt.
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NPR's Leila Fadel sits down with Iraq's former Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari to talk about the fallout from the US-Israel war against Iran, for Iraq and the region.
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President Trump's war against Iran carries echoes of the 2003 war in Iraq. NPR's Leila Fadel explores the lessons learned to understand whether regime change stands a chance in neighboring Iran.
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Leila Fadel asks the president of international law foundation Global Rights Compliance about accusations that the U.S. and Israel broke international law with initial strikes in Iran, and that Iran targeted civilians in response.
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Mehdi Mahmoudian worries Iran could experience an endless cycle of violence unless — or until — it achieves democracy.
