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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FBI investigates New Orleans attack as terrorism, and bomb techs probe suspect's Texas home. Firework mortars and camp fuel canisters found in Tesla Cybertruck that exploded outside Las Vegas hotel.
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The attack began hours after Ukraine's president addressed his nation. He acknowledged the agony of 2024 with heavy battlefield casualties and Russia's army advancing along much of the 600-mile front.
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The governor of Damascus faced major backlash in the Arab world for his comments about making peace with Israel. But what do Israelis and Syrians want?
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NPR's Leila Fadel speaks with extremism researcher Eviane Leidig about how some white nationalist housewives are using social media to normalize and amplify their beliefs.
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NPR's Leila Fadel speaks with reporter Alex Figueroa Cancel of El Nuevo Día about the widespread outages the island has had since Hurricane Maria.
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NPR's Leila Fadel talks to journalist Kejan Haynes on the latest from Trinidad and Tobago, where the government declared a state of emergency following bouts of gang violence.
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Ukraine's capital begins the new year under a new wave of Russian drone attacks. At least half of Puerto Rico is starting the new year without power. Many people this month will embark on Dry January.
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Throughout 2024 negotiations for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas were on again and off again. There were moments of great optimism and then months of no negotiations at all.
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World Health Organization director Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who escaped an Israeli airstrike in Yemen, says Gaza's health crisis is indescribable and is calling for a ceasefire. -
This year was an intense one for the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. U.N. aid groups say hospital's collapse in northern Gaza threatens people's survival. How might history remember Joe Biden?
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NPR's Leila Fadel talks to Richard Haass, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, who reflects on his time serving in the Pentagon under President Jimmy Carter, who has died at age 100.
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The governor of Damascus faces backlash after he tells NPR that he wants the U.S. to mediate cordial relations with Israel.
