Jamie Tarabay is a senior producer for CNN International based in Hong Kong, where she writes deeply-reported analysis and features on geo-politics and international security affairs.

In a career that's spanned two decades, Tarabay has reported from around the world on conflicts in Southeast Asia and the Middle East as well as foreign policy and security issues in the United States, Europe and Australia.

Tarabay began her career as a foreign correspondent with a posting in Singapore for The Associated Press in 1999, a stint that included covering East Timor's independence from Indonesia, the aftermath of the collapse of the Southeast Asian tiger economies and the global anxiety over the Y2K millennium bug. In 2000, she moved to Jerusalem and spent years reporting the second Palestinian intifada, interviewing Palestinians and Israelis, the militant leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and the now-imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti. She returned in 2004 to cover Yasser Arafat's death. Tarabay's reporting from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip was later included in her first book "A Crazy Occupation: Eyewitness to the Intifada," published in 2005.

Tarabay spent five years covering the conflict in Iraq and largely made her home in Baghdad. Her primary focus during those years was the plight of civilians caught in war, but she also spent significant time documenting the experiences of the U.S. military. She is the only journalist to have interviewed Saddam Hussein's mistress as the manhunt for the deposed dictator dragged on.

In 2005, Tarabay joined NPR News, where she was the Baghdad bureau chief for two years. After moving to the U.S. in 2008, she continued her work at NPR News and embarked on a two-year project documenting Islam in America. She covered three presidential elections, U.S. national security, foreign policy and the ramifications of the Arab Spring. Tarabay was the only reporter to have exclusively interviewed the exiled Turkish cleric Fetulah Gulen at his compound in the Poconos during his years of isolation.

Before joining CNN, Tarabay was a senior staff writer for Al Jazeera America, where she was among the first to highlight the fissures in Iraqi politics that allowed the Islamic State to cement its foothold in Mosul, surprising the international community when it declared its caliphate in 2014.

Tarabay's reporting on the aftermath of the race riots in Ferguson, Missouri earned her an Alliance for Women in Media Gracie Award in 2015. Her writing has appeared in the quarterly "Dispatches: Beyond Iraq" and "Verge 2015: Errance," a collection of essays and poems about departures, as well as Marie Claire and The Atlantic online. In 2007, her reporting on Iraq was recognized with an Alfred I. duPont-Columbia University Award.

Born in Australia and educated in Sydney, Berlin and Beirut, Tarabay is a graduate of the University of Sydney. She also speaks Arabic and French.

Follow @jamietarabay