WSJ hires Coles from Reuters as Baghdad correspondent

Peter Wonacott, the bureau chief for the Middle East and North Africa, sent out the following announcement:

The Middle East bureau would like to welcome Isabel Coles as our new Iraq correspondent out of Baghdad. Isabel is uniquely suited for this challenging role. She spent seven years with Reuters as a correspondent in Iraq, and was part of a team that was a Pulitzer finalist in 2015 for reporting on the rise of Islamic State. Isabel worked most recently with Reuters as its senior correspondent out of Istanbul, primarily covering Islamic State’s military setbacks back in Iraq, including the liberation of Mosul. Isabel, who speaks Persian as well as Arabic and Kurdish, will also support our coverage of Iran. She is graduate of Cambridge, where her studies focused on the Middle East and its languages. Please join me in welcoming Isabel to the Journal and wishing her well in another new adventure.