Claude Salhani

Claude Salhani is a journalist, author and political analyst based in the Middle East, and Washsington, DC. and specializes in Middle East politics, politicized Islam and terrorism

He is the former editor of the Middle East Times and a long-time contributor to the Commentary pages of the Washington Times and Beirut’s Executive Magazine. He is the former International Editor with United Press International and also ran UPI’s Terrorism & Security Desks.

He appears on a number of radio and television networks as a political commentator including CNN, French radio and TV, Canadian radio and TV (in English and French), al-Hurra and other Middle East medias. He is a senior associate at the Washington, D.C.-based Institute of World Affairs and a member of the London-based International Institute of Strategic Studies (IISS).

Over a span of some 30 years Mr. Salhani has traveled to 83 countries, covered 12 wars and interviewed numerous world leaders. His reports have been published in major newspapers and magazines around the world, including The Times (London), the San Francisco Chronicle, the San Diego Union Tribune, Foreign Service Journal, Middle East Policy Journal, Salon.com, The American Conservative and many others.

He is the author of Black September to Desert Storm; While the Arab World Slept: the impact of the Bush years on the Middle East, and contributing author of The Iraq War. His latest book, Islam Without a Veil, was published just a month ago.

Mr. Salhani was based in Beirut, Cairo, Paris, Brussels, London, New York and Washington, DC. His assignments included every major Middle East conflict starting with the Jordanian-Palestinian Black September clashes in Jordan, the 1973 Arab Israeli War, the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, the Lebanese Civil War, the insurgency in Oman’s Dhofar region, the Israeli invasion of south Lebanon (1978), the Iraq-Iran War, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon (1982) and subsequent siege of Beirut, the first Gulf War, the Czech Velvet Revolution and the downfall of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union and most recently, the war in Iraq.

He was wounded three times while reporting on various Mideast conflicts. He was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut .

Mr. Salhani is fluent in English, French, Italian, Arabic and has a working knowledge of Spanish. He studied in the Master’s in Conflict Resolution program at Royal Roads University, in Victoria, Canada.