Jane Arraf
Jane Arraf covers Egypt, Iraq, and other parts of the Middle East for NPR News.
Arraf joined NPR in 2016 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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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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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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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.
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Protesters across Iraq came out into the streets on Friday angry at low employment and poor government services in the country.
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The cease-fire between Turkey and Syrian Kurds appears to be holding, despite a looming deadline. Turkey's president said the process will not end before all of the Kurds have withdrawn as agreed.
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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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"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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Iraqis are jubilant over the designation of the ancient city of Babylon as a world heritage site. Damage from railways, poor restorations and U.S. troops are now considered part of the local history.
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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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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.
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Kurdish Syrian authorities have tried 7,000 ISIS suspects in a justice system that bans torture and the death penalty. Some of the judges are women, which comes as a shock to ISIS fighters on trial.
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In recent visits to the camp, NPR was told of babies dying of malnutrition, and found women collapsed by roadsides. "There's a lack of supplies and the numbers of patients are huge," a doctor says.