Jane Arraf
Jane Arraf covers Egypt, Iraq, and other parts of the Middle East for NPR News.
Arraf joined NPR in 2017 after two decades of reporting from and about the region for CNN, NBC, the Christian Science Monitor, PBS Newshour, and Al Jazeera English. She has previously been posted to Baghdad, Amman, and Istanbul, along with Washington, DC, New York, and Montreal.
She has reported from Iraq since the 1990s. For several years, Arraf was the only Western journalist based in Baghdad. She reported on the war in Iraq in 2003 and covered live the battles for Fallujah, Najaf, Samarra, and Tel Afar. She has also covered India, Pakistan, Haiti, Bosnia, and Afghanistan and has done extensive magazine writing.
Arraf is a former Edward R. Murrow press fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. Her awards include a Peabody for PBS NewsHour, an Overseas Press Club citation, and inclusion in a CNN Emmy.
Arraf studied journalism at Carleton University in Ottawa and began her career at Reuters.
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A rocket attack Thursday at Baghdad's airport appears to be the latest in a string of attacks over the past five weeks that U.S. officials say have escalated both in frequency and potential lethality.
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Many of those Iraqis — in the U.S. legally but not American citizens — came to the U.S. as children. Most arrived back in Iraq without the documents or skills to get by.
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NPR has gained access to an ISIS detention camp in Syria. Kurdish forces are trying to secure thousands of prisoners while dealing with threats from Turkey, Russia and the Syrian government.
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Egyptian authorities raided and shut down a news organization critical of the country's government. It's part of a crackdown that has seen websites closed and thousands of activists jailed.
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"By God, my son did nothing wrong," says Khazaal Salih. His son, Abbas, a medic, was killed while treating a wounded protester. More than 300 Iraqis have been killed during protests in recent weeks.
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Many U.S. special operators have been ordered out of Kurdish-controlled areas of Syria, but other troops have arrived to guard oil installations. The Pentagon says the mission is still to fight ISIS.
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The U.S. military is clarifying its mission in Syria after President Trump's on-again, off-again vows to pull them out. For now they're guarding oil fields but there's renewed violence in the region.
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Much of the protesters' anger is directed at Iran and at corrupt Iraqi politicians. "Parliament is just mafias and corrupt parties — all of them came to destroy this country," says one protester.
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Iraq's president has asked the prime minister to resign and called for new elections, two key demands of protesters there.
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In Iraq and Syria, the ISIS leader's death has stirred a mix of responses — from joy to disbelief to dread that the militants will rise again.