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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As the Iran war enters its second month, Israel has invaded Lebanon to drive out Iran-backed Hezbollah and a humanitarian disaster is unfolding as over one million Lebanese people are displaced.
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Over one million Lebanese displaced by Israel's invasion, thousands of U.S. troops deployed to the Middle East, with more on the way, delays continue at U.S. airports with no funding deal in sight.
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Additional U.S. troops have reached the Middle East, with more on the way. While the U.S. military hasn't specified a mission, the critical Strait of Hormuz remains closed to almost all oil tankers.
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NPR's Leila Fadel asks Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina about their tour of East Asia.
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The TSA is still unfunded by Congress, and President Trump has ordered TSA workers to be paid. Delays continue at many major airports in the U.S.
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How might attacks on gas fields in the Middle East affect global energy markets? NPR's Leila Fadel speaks to Ira Joseph, a gas analyst at Columbia University's Center for Global Energy Policy.
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Global oil and energy prices reel as the war in the Middle East escalates, Trump talks about potential for ground troops in Iran and the possibility of seizing Kharg Island.
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ABC is pulling the 22nd season of 'The Bachelorette' days ahead of its scheduled release after TMZ published a 2023 video of its star, Frankie Taylor Paul, attacking her ex-boyfriend Dakota Mortensen.
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NPR's Leila Fadel asks Iran expert Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group about Iran's nuclear capabilities before and after U.S. and Israeli attacks.
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NPR's Leila Fadel talks to Billboard Magazine's Tetris Kelly about the comeback concert for K-pop supergroup BTS. Hundreds of thousands of fans are expected to pack downtown Seoul Saturday.