Mohamad Bazzi is Newsday's Middle East Bureau chief, a position he assumed in January 2003. Based in Beirut, he is responsible for covering the Arab world.

Bazzi previously served as Newsday's United Nations Bureau chief. He has been a staff writer at Newsday since January 1998 and has covered a variety of beats, including New York City transportation, the City University system and neighborhood issues.

He has covered the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Palestinian uprising.

For six months after the Sept. 11 attacks, he was on special assignment reporting on the rise of militant Islam. He traveled from London to Cairo to Pakistan chronicling the emergence of the Al-Qaeda network and its ideological roots.

Bazzi won a 2003 Silver Medal from the UN Correspondents Association for his coverage of the UN, and, in 2002, SAJA's first Daniel Pearl Award for Outstanding Print Reporting on South Asia for his coverage of Pakistan and Afghanistan. His other awards include: the 2002 Newsday Publisher's Award for Specialist Writing for his reporting on militant Islam, and the 2001 Young Reporter of the Year Award from the New York Press Club for his coverage of the death of the president of Syria.

He graduated in 1997 from the City University of New York, with a bachelor's degree in urban studies. Bazzi was born in Lebanon and moved to New York at age 10.