Updates on International’s Middle East Team

We are excited to announce big additions to the team covering the Middle East: Christina Goldbaum will be our next bureau chief in Beirut and Abdi Latif Dahir will be a new correspondent based there.

Fresh from sharing the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for coverage of Afghanistan , Christina will lead our Lebanon and Syria teams during a period of uncertainty and shifting geopolitics in the region. In Lebanon, a once all-powerful Hezbollah is under tremendous pressure. In Syria, a new government led by a former Islamist rebel is struggling to rebuild the country after years of conflict and dictatorial rule under Assad.

Christina landed in Lebanon last year, just as the war between Israel and Hezbollah intensified. She steered the bureau through the conflict and reported keenly observed dispatches of life under Israeli bombardment. When rebels overran Damascus in December, Christina was among the first foreign correspondents to make it to the city, arriving less than a day after the rebels seized control.

In her first 48 hours there, Christina delivered live updates, a front-page story, an audio dispatch for "The Headlines" and a reporter video. Her stories from Syria and Lebanon, including an evocative piece on Syrians searching for their disappeared loved ones , were part of a series recognized by the Overseas Press Club .

" Christina is the full package," said Andy Parsons, who edited much of her work in Afghanistan. "She is fearless, diving right into difficult places and delivering exceptional work. She has a beautiful writing touch, which she has displayed in many dispatches."

Christina comes to Beirut off of a successful tour in Afghanistan and Pakistan, serving as a correspondent and later bureau chief. Over four years, she embedded with smugglers , armed rebels and migrants , interviewed jihadists and reported insightful political analyses.

Before joining The Times in New York in 2018, Christina reported from sub-Saharan Africa as a freelance journalist and received the Livingston Award for international reporting for her investigative reporting in Somalia.