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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Is the U.S. moving closer to ending the war with Iran? NPR's Leila Fadel speaks with Democratic Rep. Adam Smith of Washington, ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee.
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U.S. and Iran trade fire amid month-old ceasefire, Tennessee becomes first state to draw new U.S. House map after SCOTUS decision, U.S.'s continued strikes on alleged drug boats raise questions.
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Russia's annual Victory Day parade will be smaller than previous ones as the effects of the war on Ukraine take a toll.
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NPR's Leila Fadel speaks with former U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See Miguel Diaz about Secretary of State Marco Rubio's visit to the Vatican.
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Trump says the U.S. is close to a deal to end the Iran war, the Iran war has pushed global oil prices up, but there's no sign of a huge surge in U.S. production, Marco Rubio visits Pope Leo.
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NPR's Leila Fadel asks Jesse Keenan of Tulane University about a new study that suggests New Orleans could become uninhabitable by the end of the century.
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NPR's Leila Fadel speaks with Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, about the latest attacks in the Persian Gulf.
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President Trump says he is reviewing a new offer from Iran though virtually zero details have been made public.
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NPR's Leila Fadel speaks with writer and artist Molly Crabapple about her new book, "Here Where We Live Is Our Country."
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NPR's Leila Fadel asks Karim Sadjadpour with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace how Iran might approach its next round of negotiations with the U.S.