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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Large protests are expected to continue in Iraq Friday, even after the government said last week that many of the 149 people killed in recent protests were killed by security forces shooting to kill.
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More than 2,000 refugees have crossed into Iraq since Turkey began its assault on northeastern Syria last week. Aid groups are bracing for as many as 50,000 refugee arrivals.
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As a military offensive by Turkey into Syria continues, aid agencies are increasingly concerned. Tens of thousands of civilians in the region have been displaced by the violence.
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Mustafa Abed lost his leg as a baby during the battle of Fallujah. A nonprofit arranged medical treatment for him in Oregon but then lost touch. With help from NPR's Jane Arraf, they have reconnected.
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"It's crazy to know that he died alone in a country he'd never been in," Jimmy Aldaoud's sister told NPR. He had arrived in the U.S. with his Iraqi family when he was a very young child.
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The strike hit a detention center in the Libyan capital Tripoli, killing more than 40 people. The U.N.-backed government in Libya blames a militia leader who is fighting for control of Tripoli.
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The girls, ages 10 and 11, were held captive for years and remember nothing of their Yazidi heritage. They miss the ISIS woman who looked after them and tell rescuers they want to return to her.
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Watfa and Jeelan are finally free of the ISIS woman who kept them captive for the past five years. But she's the only "family" they can remember and they want to go back to her.
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Two oil tankers were attacked Thursday in the Gulf of Oman, and the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet is helping out. Tensions in the region are high.
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Because their fathers were ISIS fighters, the Yazidi community rejects the children and forces their mothers to give them up. Some willingly do so, but others are desperate for news of their children.