Jomana Karadsheh is an award-winning International Correspondent based in the network’s London bureau. For two decades, she has reported extensively from countries across the Middle East and North Africa including Iraq, Libya and Syria.

Prior to her move to London, Karadsheh was based in CNN’s Istanbul Bureau for five years, where she reported on Turkey and the wider region.

Karadsheh was integral to the network’s coverage of the devastating Turkey-Syria earthquake, which struck in early 2023 and 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.

For months, Karadsheh led CNN’s coverage of the 2022 protests in Iran. Working with CNN teams in Abu Dhabi, London, Hong Kong and Atlanta, Karadsheh produced 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.

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.

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.

Karadsheh has also extensively covered covering the war in Syria and the refugee crisis in neighboring countries. She made multiple reporting trips to regime-controlled Syria, including the capital Damascus. Karadsheh was also 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. Her reporting from al-Hol was picked up by media around the world.

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 was one of a number of CNN correspondents on the ground in Iraq in 2014 and 2015 reporting on the rise of ISIS and the battle to recapture cities from the terror group. In 2020, she was one of the first American network journalists on the ground in Baghdad reporting on the US strike that killed Iranian General Qassem Solaimani.

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