Con Coughlin

Executive Foreign Editor, Daily Telegraph

Con Coughlin is Executive Foreign Editor of the Daily Telegraph and an expert on global conflict, international security and the Middle East. He writes a weekly column for the Daily Telegraph, writes on foreign affairs, defence and security issues for both the Daily and Sunday Telegraph titles, and is an occasional contributor to The Spectator and the Wall Street Journal. He appeared regularly on American and British television during the war in Iraq and broadcasts regularly on American and British television and radio on a wide range of international issues, especially in relation to Afghanistan, Iran, the Middle East, and Iraq.

After joining the Telegraph group in 1980, Coughlin worked as a foreign correspondent for 15 years in the Beirut, Jerusalem, New York and Washington bureaus. In 1997 he was appointed Foreign Editor of the Sunday Telegraph, and became the newspaper’s Executive Editor in 1999. He was appointed Defence and Security Editor of the Daily Telegraph in January 2006 before taking up his current position in August 2006.

Coughlin's books include a biography of Saddam Hussein, Saddam: The Secret Life (2002), which was a New York Times bestseller and American Ally: Tony Blair and the War on Terror (2006). His most recent book is Khomeini’s Ghost (2009), a study of the 1979 Iranian revolution and the rise of militant Islam.