Douglas Farah

Douglas Farah (born 22 July, 1957) is an investigative consultant and freelance writer on finance and national security issues. He worked for over two decades as a correspondent in West Africa and Latin America for the "Washington Post" and other publications.

Farah was born to missionary parents and moved to the Amazon basin in Bolivia when he was 18 months old. When he was seven, his family moved to the capital of La Paz. He graduated from the American Cooperative School in 1974 and worked in rural development, travelling around Latin America and Europe. He then enrolled in the University of Kansas, and began working for United Press International. He graduated with degrees in journalism and Latin American Studies in 1985, and became the UPI's bureau chief in El Salvador, covering the civil war there, and later the Contra rebels in Honduras as well. In 1987, he left UPI to freelance for the "Post", the "Boston Globe", and "US News and World Report".

In 1990, he joined the "Post" staff and moved to Colombia, where he covered the drug war and the cartel of Pablo Escobar. Two years later he became the "Post" 's staff writer on Central America and the Caribbean, covering disturbances in Haiti and the situation in Cuba. In 1997 he moved to Washington, DC, where he served as an international correspondent for the paper, continuing to cover drug related issues. In 2000, he was named West African bureau chief for the paper. Reporting on ties between al-Qaeda and diamond networks in the region, he and his family were evacuated from the area after receiving threats to their lives. He continued to travel there, however, and published a book on his revelations, "Blood From Stones: The Secret Financial Network of Terror".

He is also the author, with Stephen Braun, of "Merchant of Death: Money, Guns, Planes, and the Man Who Makes War Possible", a book on Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout.

He appeared on the "Daily Show" on 13 September, 2007.

External links

* [http://www.douglasfarah.com/ Farah's website]