Rageh Omaar

Since September 2017 Omaar has occasionally presented the ITV Lunchtime News including the ITV News London Lunchtime Bulletin and the ITV Evening News.

Since October 2015, alongside his duties as International Affairs Editor, Rageh has been a Deputy Newscaster of ITV News at Ten.

In January 2014 and 2015, Omaar was nominated for the Services to Media award at the British Muslim Awards.

In January 2013, it was announced that Omaar would be joining ITV News as a special correspondent. He was promoted the following year to ITV News' International Affairs Editor.

Additionally, Omaar has expressed regret about the way in which he covered the invasion of Iraq during his time as a BBC correspondent. He suggested that he and his colleagues did pieces on Saddam Hussein, his regime and weapons inspectors, giving little coverage to the Iraqi people. Interviewed in John Pilger's documentary The War You Don't See (2010), Omaar also lamented that "one didn't press the most uncomfortable buttons hard enough" and called the coverage "a giant echo chamber".

In 2008, he was also presented the Arab Media Watch Award for excellence in journalism.

In September 2006, Omaar joined Al Jazeera English. He served as a Middle Eastern correspondent for its London Division.

In 2003, Omaar was the recipient of an Ethnic Multicultural Media Academy award for the best TV journalist.

Omaar began his journalistic career as a trainee for The Voice newspaper. In 1991, he moved to Ethiopia where he freelanced as a foreign correspondent, working mainly for the BBC World Service. A year later, Omaar returned to London to work as a producer and broadcast journalist for the BBC. He moved to South Africa after having been appointed the BBC's Africa correspondent. Omaar's wife and children were based there through 2004, and his regular commuting made domestic life a challenge.

Rageh Omaar (/ˈ r æ ɡ i ˈ oʊ m ɑːr / ; Somali: Raage Oomaar; Arabic: راجح أومار ‎; born 19 July 1967) is a Somali-born British journalist and writer. He was a BBC world affairs correspondent, where he made his name reporting from Iraq. In September 2006, he moved to a new post at Al Jazeera English, where he presented the nightly weekday documentary series Witness until January 2010. The Rageh Omaar Report, first aired February 2010, is a one-hour, monthly investigative documentary in which he reports on international current affairs stories. From January 2013, he became a special correspondent and presenter for ITV News, reporting on a broad range of news stories, as well as producing special in-depth reports from all around the UK and further afield. A year after his appointment, Omaar was promoted to International Affairs Editor for ITV News. Since October 2015, alongside his duties as International Affairs Editor, he has been a Deputy Newscaster of ITV News at Ten. Since September 2017 Omaar has occasionally presented the ITV Lunchtime News including the ITV News London Lunchtime Bulletin and the ITV Evening News.

Omaar was born in 1967 in Mogadishu to Abdullahi and Sahra Omaar. His father was an accountant who became a businessman, a representative of Massey Ferguson tractors, founder of the country's first independent newspaper, and was responsible for introducing Coca Cola to Somalia. A Muslim, his family is originally from Somalia, Hargeisa.