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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The middle school winner of NPR’s Student Podcast Challenge tells how her golden retriever, Lopez, helped restore her independence.
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NPR's Leila Fadel speaks with Gulliver Cragg, of the French television network France 24, about his trip to a facility in Ukraine, where Russian POWs from the Kursk incursion are being held.
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Jan Egeland, head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, talks to NPR's Leila Fadel about his visit to Colombia, where he reports a 70% increase in civilians living in conflict zones.
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Israel hits Hezbollah targets in Lebanon in "preemptive strike." VP Harris’ ties with Donald Trump in some swing states in latest poll. EX-LA mayor Eric Garcetti is accused of lying under oath.
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Vice President Kamala Harris gave the biggest speech of her political career Thursday night to cap off the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
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While Vice President Harris called the suffering in Gaza "heartbreaking," activists say they were hoping a Palestinian American would have also been allowed to speak at the convention.
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A major sticking point to reaching a deal has been a small strip of land bordering Gaza’s southernmost border with Egypt, and who will control it. The area is called the Philadelphi Corridor.
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Former President Donald Trump traveled to the border wall in Cochise County, Ariz., on Thursday. It was part of a plan to pull attention away from Vice President Harris and the Democratic convention.
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VP Kamala Harris accepts the Democratic nomination for president. Former President Trump visits the wall along the southern border in Cochise County, Arizona. The FDA approves new COVID-19 vaccines.
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NPR's Leila Fadel talks to Ali Krieger, former U.S. Women's National Team star, about the new collective bargaining agreement between players and the National Women's Soccer League.