In 2010, NBC News hired Atia to report and manage its operations in Afghanistan. Outside of Afghanistan, Atia reported on various international stories for CNN -including the Aung San Suu Kyi trial – where she had to sneak into Myanmar’s military state and film covertly - and the Gaza Flotilla attack of 2010 by Israeli forces. She has also interviewed numerous Afghan, International, and American politicians and generals. In Afghanistan, Atia spent time traveling and embedding with U.S., NATO and Afghan forces -including during major military operations. A year-later she was hired to be CNN’s Afghanistan correspondent and manager of its Kabul bureau – an operation that she organized and set up.

Within 2-years Atia was out in the field, producing on stories that included Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in Pakistan and the war in Iraq. In Maryland, Atia covered a wide range of stories – from politics to the impact that drugs and crime had on the local community - before moving to Atlanta to work for CNN.Īt CNN, she started in the Media Operations department before making her way to the international desk. After graduating from Virginia Tech, where she anchored the college’s local television station VTTV, Atia volunteered and was then hired on at CTV 76 –a local TV station in Largo, MD. Atia Abawi is a foreign correspondent and author based in the Middle East.įrom an early age, Atia knew she wanted to be a journalist.

A land of permanent goodbyes