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.
-
Immigration attorney Linette Tobin shares details with NPR about the government's case against her client, Jerce Reyes Barrios, a Venezuelan soccer player and father of two. -
Leila Fadel speaks with Congressman Jim Himes (D-Conn.) ahead of a hearing on the Trump administration's inadvertent disclosure of war plans on messaging app Signal. -
How Education Department cuts will impact lower-income and rural schools, hearing to be held on Venezuelan deportations, NTSB says Maryland officials did not assess Key Bridge risks before collapse.
-
The National Transportation Safety Board strongly criticized Maryland officials for not determining the Francis Scott Key Bridge's risk of collapse. The bridge collapsed after a cargo ship struck it.
-
President Trump fired two Democratic appointees from the independent agency tasked with policing corporate America. One of them told NPR the move is a gift to the president's wealthiest supporters. -
Stephen Capus, who leads Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, discusses why his organization is filing a lawsuit against the Trump administration. -
Democrats have few options to fight Trump in Congress, and it seems challenging to wield the little leverage they do have. We asked two Democratic strategists where the party goes from here. -
President Trump justified his use of a wartime law to deport people. The CEO of Democracy Forward argues that the president is using it to claim powers not granted to him under the Constitution. -
On March 8, Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestinian activist and Columbia University graduate student, was detained by federal agents. His wife, Noor Abdalla, witnessed the arrest. -
President Trump is going to the Department of Justice to deliver a speech about law and order. It is rare for a president to physically visit the agency meant to independently uphold the rule of law.
