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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The U.N. finds that nearly half of all children younger than 5 in Afghanistan, some 3.1 million, are facing acute malnutrition. Mothers share their plight to provide the children sustenance. -
The Taliban have waged attacks across the country, prompting a call to reduce the violence from Gen. Mark Milley. In Kabul, the public worries about the Taliban's return. -
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.
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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. -
At the championship of the Afghan women's soccer league, players sprint across the field. Hoodie-style hijabs cover their hair. The scene was once unthinkable. But now the players face new obstacles. -
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. -
The victims of recent fighting in Helmand include a pregnant woman struck by a stray bullet. Peace talks continue, but the Taliban argue that an Afghan cease-fire should come as the talks conclude. -
Shamsia Alizada dropped out of the Madwdud Academy in Kabul after a suicide bomber killed more than 40 students. But she returned — and has scored top grades on the country's college entrance exams.
