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Leila Molana-Allen

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Leila Molana-Allen

About Leila @leila_ma

Leila Molana-Allen is a roving Special Correspondent for the Newshour, reporting from across the wider Middle East and Africa. She has been based in the region, in Beirut and Baghdad, for a decade.

Molana-Allen spent months reporting from the front lines of the Israel-Gaza war, uncovering the aftermath of the October 7 terror attacks and investigating human rights abuses in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Earlier in 2023 she investigated the growth of Palestinian militant groups inside Jenin and Nablus after the IDF assault on Jenin camp and reported from the ongoing anti-government protests across Israel. Molana-Allen gained rare access to enter North-West Syria's besieged enclave to report on recovery efforts after the devastating earthquake and ongoing Russian and Syrian regime assaults on civilians in Idlib and Aleppo. She has produced ongoing reporting on growing radicalism and violence in ISIS camps and prisons in North-East Syria. In 2021, Molana-Allen embedded with US forces in Iraq under daily assault from Iran-backed militias, and accompanied Iraqi forces as they hunted down ISIS sleeper cells, coming under fire from ISIS militants in hiding. Molana-Allen led the first TV crew to gain access to the site of the 2020 Beirut port explosion for the Newshour, after months reporting from the midst of anti-government protests and the ensuing violent crackdown.

Before joining the Newshour, Molana-Allen was a foreign correspondent for The Economist in London, a correspondent for BBC World Service Radio, and Middle East Correspondent for FRANCE 24. Raised in a first generation British-Iranian family in London, Molana-Allen gained her bachelor's degree from University of Oxford and a Masters of Science from the Columbia School of Journalism.

Full Bio

Leila’s Recent Stories

World Aug 04

5 years after Beirut blast, victims struggle to rebuild lives as leaders evade blame

Five years ago, one of the largest non-nuclear explosions in history ripped apart Beirut's waterfront with a terrifying power. The blast, which many still refer to as "the bomb," was not terrorism, nor was it war. It was caused by…

World Jan 31

Syrian revolutionary describes his vision for rebuilding after 13 years of civil war

As Syria recovers from 13 years of civil war and five decades under the Assad regime, its citizens face the daunting task of rebuilding their nation. Saleh Hawa, a Syrian literature professor and revolutionary, saw his hometown bombed heavily during…

World Jan 08

Syria’s once-empowered Alawite minority faces uncertain future after fall of Assad

As Syria emerges from decades of dictatorship, people in the Assad family's ancestral home of Latakia province are both overjoyed and anxious. Assad and his family are Alawite, an offshoot of Shia Islam, and the people of his former region…

World Dec 26

How the Assad regime made billions producing and exporting party drugs

Now that the Assad regime in Syria has fallen, the full scale of that government’s production and distribution of illicit drugs is coming to light. Leila Molana-Allen reports from the drug factories in Syria.

World Dec 18

Amid new freedoms, Syrians face horrors at site of Assad’s 2013 chemical weapons attack

Syrians are celebrating their hard-won freedoms throughout the nation, but that joy is tempered by the absence of so many imprisoned and never heard from again. In some ways, Syria is a land of ghosts, and the job of speaking…

World Dec 17

Displaced Syrians return to face daunting task of rebuilding homes and families

In Syria, people are returning home after years of a civil war that displaced millions and left the country divided and destroyed. Assad regime checkpoints that severed any chance of seeing loved ones are now gone like the government. Special…

World Dec 16

Syria’s rebel leaders face critical decisions as they chart new path for the country

For the first time since he fled the country he ruled with an iron fist and a willingness to kill his own people to hold power, Bashar al-Assad was heard from. In a statement from exile in Moscow, Assad claimed…

World Dec 15

Syrians begin piecing their lives back together a week after rebels overthrow Assad

Signs of normalcy are starting to return a week after life inside Syria was upended as rebels toppled President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. As the country’s new leaders begin to chart a path forward, the UN envoy to Syria called for…

World Dec 13

Syrians express jubilation during first Friday prayers since overthrow of Assad

Barely a week after Bashar al-Assad fled the country he destroyed, Syrians welcomed the first Friday prayers. There are many unanswered questions about this new Syria, but one thing is for certain, there is unfettered jubilation. Special correspondent Leila Molana-Allen…

World Dec 12

Freed Syrian prisoners describe the horrors they faced under Assad

The Assad legacy is one of horror with hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced or in exile. Perhaps nothing illustrates the depths of the depravity more than the archipelago of prisons and torture centers where tens of thousands were…

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