Diaa Hadid
Diaa Hadid chiefly covers Pakistan and Afghanistan for NPR News. She is based in NPR's bureau in Islamabad. There, Hadid and her team were awarded a Murrow in 2019 for hard news for their story on why abortion rates in Pakistan are among the highest in the world.
Hadid has also documented the culture war surrounding Valentines' Day in Pakistan, the country's love affair with Vespa scooters and the struggle of a band of women and girls to ride their bikes in public. She visited a town notorious in Pakistan for a series of child rapes and murders, and attended class with young Pakistanis racing to learn Mandarin as China's influence over the country expands.
Hadid joined NPR after reporting from the Middle East for over a decade. She worked as a correspondent for The New York Times from March 2015 to March 2017, and she was a correspondent for The Associated Press from 2006 to 2015.
Hadid documented the collapse of Gadhafi's rule in Libya from the capital, Tripoli. In Cairo's Tahrir Square, she wrote of revolutionary upheaval sweeping Egypt. She covered the violence of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria from Baghdad, Erbil and Dohuk. From Beirut, she was the first to report on widespread malnutrition and starvation inside a besieged rebel district near Damascus. She also covered Syria's war from Damascus, Homs, Tartous and Latakia.
Her favorite stories are about people and moments that capture the complexity of the places she covers.
They include her story on a lonely-hearts club in Gaza, run by the militant Islamic group Hamas. She unraveled the mysterious murder of a militant commander, discovering that he was killed for being gay. In the West Bank, she profiled Israel's youngest prisoner, a 12-year-old Palestinian girl who got her first period while being interrogated.
In Syria, she met the last great storyteller of Damascus, whose own trajectory of loss reflected that of his country. In Libya, she profiled a synagogue that once was the beating heart of Tripoli's Jewish community.
In Baghdad, Hadid met women who risked their lives to visit beauty salons in a quiet rebellion against extremism and war. In Lebanon, she chronicled how poverty was pushing Syrian refugee women into survival sex.
Hadid documented the Muslim pilgrimage to holy sites in Saudi Arabia, known as the Hajj, using video, photographs and essays.
Hadid began her career as a reporter for The Gulf News in Dubai in 2004, covering the abuse and hardships of foreign workers in the United Arab Emirates. She was raised in Canberra by a Lebanese father and an Egyptian mother. She graduated from the Australian National University with a B.A. (with Honors) specializing in Arabic, a language she speaks fluently. She also makes do in Hebrew and Spanish.
Her passions are her daughter, photography, cooking, vintage dress shopping and listening to the radio. She sings really badly, but that won't stop her.
Meet Hadid on Twitter @diaahadid, or see her photos on Instagram. She also often posts up her work on her community Facebook page.
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In the last weeks of the Trump administration, the U.S. is moving to close a two-decade chapter and withdraw from Afghanistan, causing great apprehension among Afghans as the Taliban step up attacks.
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Mahbubullah Muhibbi is the latest, and one of the highest-profile victims of shadowy assailants, who've killed journalists, police, security forces, judicial authorities and senior administrators. -
The two sides have agreed on a way forward for substantive negotiations aimed at ending decades of almost continuous war in the country, representatives said in near-twin tweets. -
"Only through a series of independent inquiries will we uncover the true extent of this disregard for Afghan life, which normalized murder, and resulted in war crimes," an Afghan rights group says. -
The Australian military released a candid report detailing war crimes allegedly committed by Australian forces serving in Afghanistan. The report claims Australian troops killed 39 unarmed civilians.
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Biden's record, especially as vice president, helps illuminate what he may do once he is sworn in. Amid an uptick in violence, some Afghans hope for a reassessment of the U.S.-Taliban peace agreement. -
Afghan officials and citizens react to reports that President Trump is planning to accelerate the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan — reducing the number to 2,500 by January.
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In the two decades since the Taliban lost power, Afghan women have made enormous progress. Today, they play soccer in a Kabul stadium, but they fear the government will cave in to Taliban demands.
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Gunmen stormed Kabul University in Afghanistan on Monday, killing at least 19 people. It was the second attack on a learning center in Kabul in recent days. ISIS claimed responsibility.
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The Islamic State has claimed responsibility for an attack by heavily armed gunmen who stormed the campus, firing on students, some of whom jumped out of windows to flee the attackers.
