We are excited to announce that Erika Solomon will be our next bureau chief for Iran and Iraq.  

This is a complex and critical new beat, covering two important countries experiencing major change, both with dynamic populations and rich histories. Iran faces challenges at home and abroad after suffering devastating setbacks since the Oct. 7 attacks, including the 12-day war with Israel three months ago. Iraq must also navigate a new regional landscape and perhaps reinvent itself once again after the American invasion more than two decades ago. The journalistic opportunities and challenges are daunting, but Erika brings tremendous reporting heft and talent to the task, as well as a decade of reporting experience in the Middle East before she joined The Times in Berlin.

Erika will be based in Cairo, and she’ll also follow the Egypt beat as the war across the border in Gaza approaches a turning point, focusing on the country’s approach in mediating an end to the conflict and its potential role in any post-war scenario. Of course, Erika will be working closely with two correspondents who have done stellar work in the region, our U.N. bureau chief and Iran specialist, Farnaz Fassihi, and our senior Middle East correspondent, Alissa Rubin.

Erika joined The Times in 2022 as a correspondent in Germany, where she was known for “her deep knowledge of the country and its language and culture, for her lively writing, for her thorough reporting, and for her eye for revealing stories,” in the words of her editor, Kirk Kraeutler. She reported on the new spy wars in Europe from Berlin to the Arctic, and explored how migration transformed the country through the experience of its first Syrian refugee mayor. She also delivered a memorable profile of an opera singer-turned-war hero and chronicled how the German authorities foiled a fantastical right-wing coup plot.

Before Germany, Erika worked for The Financial Times and Reuters in the Middle East, covering the Arab Spring and its aftermath, including the street protests in Yemen and Bahrain and the conflicts in Syria and Iraq. She won an Overseas Press Club Award for an investigative series on the Islamic State and a British Journalism Award for her coverage of Syria. She speaks Arabic, German and Spanish.

Please give a round of applause for Erika. 

– Phil Pan, Adrienne Carter, Yara Bayoumy, Marjorie Olster and Christopher Lord