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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Egypt witnessed the bloodiest day in its modern history this week. Most of the dead are Muslim Brotherhood supporters, but there's little sympathy as the military and media ramp up a campaign to brand them as terrorists. -
On Thursday, more than 200 bodies of those killed in a crackdown on protesters by the Egyptian military were being prepared for burial at the El-Iman mosque in Cairo. Some mourners said the government was pressuring them to say the dead committed suicide or died of natural causes. -
Long reviled by many Egyptians as the backbone of a corrupt and abusive state, the country's police have become unlikely heroes for opponents of now-ousted President Mohammed Morsi. The police haven't been reformed, but frustration with the Islamist ex-president trumps public anger at the police. -
One day after Egypt's military deposed the nation's first democratically elected president, it began a crackdown on Mohammed Morsi's Islamist Muslim Brotherhood.
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The Arab Spring countries are still in the process of remaking themselves. Consider Libya, where militia fighters continue to roam the streets, yet a new private radio station does not hesitate to criticize the armed groups. -
When a civil war ends, reconciliation is the next big challenge. In Libya, black residents in one town were accused of supporting former dictator Moammar Gadhafi and were chased from their homes. They say they will return next month, but residents of the neighboring city of Misrata say they won't allow that to happen. -
Egypt's capital has been associated with protest and political upheaval. But an arts festival attempts to clear away the dust and revitalize a once-glorious cultural hub. -
Violence between Muslims and Christians in Egypt, which has only increased since the revolution, is prompting public debate about religious identity. To try to ease tension and de-emphasize differences, one group of Egyptians wants to remove religious labels from national ID cards. -
Bassem Youssef, the wildly popular host of an Egyptian political satire TV show, pokes fun at Egypt's president, Islamists and others. But he's now facing a slew of legal suits accusing him of everything from insulting the president to apostasy. His legal troubles are in many ways a test case for freedom of speech in the new Egypt. -
Cairo is negotiating with the International Monetary Fund for a $4.8 billion loan to help pull Egypt out of its deep economic crisis. The government subsidizes wheat and fuel but is running out of money to purchase these crucial imports, and Egyptians are feeling the pinch.
