Jomana Karadsheh is an award-winning CNN International Correspondent based in London. For two decades, she has reported extensively from countries across the Middle East and North Africa and has been integral to the network’s coverage of every major story out of this region.

In 2024, Karadsheh covered the humanitarian crisis in Gaza extensively. With foreign media access to the enclave restricted, she worked closely with local journalists who were on the ground to produce compelling reports on the war’s impact on civilians.

Karadsheh was also part of the CNN team deployed to the region in the fall of 2024 for breaking news coverage of the Israel-Hezbollah war.

When Syrian rebels launched a shock offensive against Bashar al-Assad’s regime at the end of 2024, Karadsheh and her team were the first western journalists inside Syria reporting from the city of Aleppo. Karadsheh sat down for a worldwide exclusive interview with Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the militant leader of the main group driving the country’s armed opposition, just days before the group captured Damascus.

Even prior to Assad’s fall, Karadsheh spent years covering the Syrian Civil War and subsequent refugee crisis. She made multiple reporting trips to the then-regime-controlled Syria, and was among the first journalists in the al-Hol Camp in Northeastern Syria in 2019 where she reported on the fall of ISIS and the foreign women and children held in the camp.

In early 2023, Karadsheh was integral to the network’s coverage of the devastating Turkey-Syria earthquake, which was the most deadly quake to hit the region in modern history. She reported from the ground from cities across the quake zone and was among the first foreign reporters to get access to the opposition-held region of Northwest Syria, where she reported on the impact of the disaster on the already war-torn Idlib province and its people. In the same year, she also led CNN’s coverage of the devastating floods which hit Libya and reported from the ground in Derna, one of the hardest hit areas. For her work in 2023, Karadsheh was recognized with the prestigious Gracie Award for Correspondent/Reporter of the Year.

For months, Karadsheh led CNN’s coverage of the 2022 protests in Iran, producing dozens of compelling reports on the uprising in Iran, bringing the world stories of young Iranian women and men fighting for their rights as the government regime intensified its brutal crackdown on dissent.

A 2021 exclusive CNN investigation by Karadsheh on Muslim majority countries deporting Chinese Uyghurs back to China was cited by the United States Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee in June of that year.

Prior to her move to London, Karadsheh was based in CNN’s Istanbul Bureau.

During her tenure in Turkey, Karadsheh and her team gained exclusive access to Turkish military operations in Northeast Syria in 2019 and Turkish navy search and rescue operations in the Aegean Sea in 2020.

In 2018, Karadsheh was part of the CNN team who for weeks covered the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi mission in Istanbul. Less than 24 hours following Khashoggi’s disappearance after entering the consulate, Karadsheh was one of the first journalists on the scene where she interviewed Khashoggi’s fiancé and reported live from outside the mission.

Karadsheh has also reported from a number of Gulf Arab states on major stories including the Saudi led blockade of Qatar in 2017 and Saudi Arabia lifting the ban on women driving in 2018.
Karadsheh also frequently reported out of CNN’s regional hub in Abu Dhabi.

Hours after the capture of the man described as “one of the world’s most wanted terrorists” in a US special forces raid in Libya in 2013- Karadsheh sat down for an exclusive interview with the wife of former al-Qaeda operative Abu Anas al-Libi.

In 2011, Karadsheh was part of the CNN team that covered the Arab Spring across the region in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria. She was among a group of foreign journalists held hostage in August 2011 by loyalists to former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi at the Rixos Hotel in Tripoli. Karadsheh was recognized for her role in negotiating the release of the group.

Later that year, Karadsheh returned to Tripoli and was based there until inter-militia fighting spread across the capital and destroyed the main airport in 2014. During her time in Libya, Karadsheh covered stories including the capture and trial of Saif al-Islam Gadhafi and Libya’s first post Gadhafi democratic elections. In September 2012 Karadsheh was the only American TV journalist on the ground in Libya reporting live as the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi was unfolding.

Based in Iraq between 2005-2011, Karadsheh began her career at CNN’s Baghdad bureau as a producer and reporter and covered major news events including the trials and execution of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, Iraq’s first democratic elections and the withdrawal of US forces from the country.

Karadsheh is a bilingual Arabic and English speaker, grew up in Amman, Jordan and studied print journalism at the Lebanese American University in Beirut.