Foreign Correspondent @NBCNews | Covering Middle East + beyond | [email protected] | IG: https://xitter.cf/t.co/aJyLESUn9T

Joined December 2008
NEW: Zelenskyy tells @NBCNews that Russia took satellite images of US airbase in Saudi Arabia three times in the days before Iran hit the facility with missiles and drones. He tells us such intelligence is being shared with Iran to help target US forces. nbcnews.com/world/ukraine/ru…
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Raf Sanchez retweeted
In my interviews with Israelis, a portrait has emerged: a people defiant but weary, resistant to Palestinian pain but traumatized from war, fed up with the world but fearful of global isolation, and in a tug-of-war with themselves. Read and listen: npr.org/2026/10/25/g-s1-1495…
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Rough year for the Louvre: -Oct 19, 2025: Thieves break into the Apollo Gallery and escape with $100m of France's crown jewels -Oct 19, 2026: The museum is forced to close amid ongoing student protests on the streets of Paris.
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NEW: Saudi interior ministry says both pilots from the FlyDubai flight - the attacker and Captain Smit Machchhar - have been transferred to the UAE. They were accompanied by an Emirati security team.
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NEW: UK counterterrorism police say five suspects arrested outside RAF Fairford are all UK citizens aged 23-25 and all residents of London
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NEW: UK counterterrorism police head say the five men have all been released on police bail. He says they remain under investigation and subject to stringent conditions. He says invetigators are keeping "an open mind" as to whether this was a state-backed operation.
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We’ve been covering settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank for years. But yesterday, we found ourselves on the menu. A group of masked settlers beat our team and pummelled the 51 year old woman we were interviewing unconscious. We’re all ok now - and Aida is out of the hospital - but this is just one incident among an unprecedented surge in settler violence across the West Bank. Here’s out story on yesterday’s attack on Sunday Today on @NBCNews. #Israel #WestBank @TODAYshow
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Exclusive: Israel is considering expelling British officials from the postwar Gaza coordination center as retaliation against the Burnham government’s toughening positions. Germany and Italy may be next as well. Our story @FT ft.com/content/e9312df9-8bbf…
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I wrote an essay that’s been on my mind for a very long time. It’s not the whole story, but it’s a snapshot that chronicles what I’ve personally witnessed and experienced over the last several years. I hope you’ll take a few minutes to read it. theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/0…
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Raf Sanchez retweeted
In 1843, Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote to a friend after seeing her first daguerreotype: “The very shadow of the person lying there fixed for ever! … I would rather have such a memorial of one I dearly loved, than the noblest artist’s work ever produced.” Our lives and homes are filled with things that once inspired similar awe. I tried to collect those feelings, in quotes like the one above, from people for whom what is now ordinary was brand new. A friar who met the inventor of eyeglasses, a founding father on the new smallpox vaccine, a woman in Iowa on her family’s first indoor bathroom. To look at a modern apartment through their eyes: ordinaryabundance.com
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Raf Sanchez retweeted
Great chart in @London_Centric Newham contributes almost as much income tax as Manchester? Islington more than Birmingham? Fascinating
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"Members of the group Patriot Front ride the metro as a commuter looks on, during the 250th anniversary of U.S. independence in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 4, 2026. REUTERS/Cheney Orr"
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Raf Sanchez retweeted
I spoke with @democracynow on our new report on Colombian military contractors & links w/ the UAE UAE allies — US, UK, EU — continue their silence on UAE support to the RSF & have still failed to call out UAE directly for their support of a group which has committed atrocities.
Colombian mercenaries accused of committing war crimes in Sudan were trained in military bases in the United Arab Emirates, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch. We speak with @joey_shea, author of the @hrw report.
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Sudan has been ravaged by more than three years of a brutal civil war, where the UAE's role in supporting the RSF has been widely documented. Now, a new report by Human Rights Watch reveals just how far the UAE is willing to go to protect and further its own interests in Sudan.
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Raf Sanchez retweeted
تقرير جديد: كولومبيون مرتبطون بفظائع تلقوا تدريبهم في قواعد إماراتية متعاقدين عسكريين خاصين كولومبيين، يُفترض أن شركة مقرها الإمارات وظّفتهم، مروا عبر قواعد عسكرية إماراتية قبل نشرهم في السودان لمؤازرة "قوات الدعم السريع"، الضالعة في الانتهاكات hrw.org/ar/news/2026/05/25/s…🚩
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🚩NEW: @HRW report finds Colombian private military contractors transited through UAE military bases ad received military training before being deployed to Sudan to support the abusive RSF 👇 hrw.org/report/2026/05/25/fr…
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President Trump says an agreement with Iran has been "largely negotiated" that would end the war and gradually reopen the Strait of Hormuz, though the proposed deal reportedly does not include a nuclear agreement. @rafsanchez has more for #SundayTODAY. today.com/video/trump-says-u…
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GUNSHOTS heard outside of the White House Approximately 20-30 Secret service told those of us gathered on the north lawn to run inside the press briefing room
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