Over the course of a week I will be hosting and moderating an online salon discussion on terrorism in conjunction with Mark Goldberg of UN Dispatch. The questions and prompts will cover everything from defining the scope of the threat to root causes to the most effective counterterrorism tactics within a broader strategy. The participants — though drawn from a variety of backgrounds and disciplines — have all spent considerable intellectual energy examining these questions and debates for several years and will provide an excellent dialogue. The discussants are:
Peter Bergen, New America Foundation
Paul Cruickshank, NYU Center on Law and Security
Greg Djerejian, The Belgravia Dispatch
Yosri Fouda, Al-Jazeera
Stephanie Kaplan, Woodrow Wilson Center
Matthew Levitt, Washington Institute on Near East Policy
Alastair Millar, Center on Global Counter Terrorism Cooperation
Eric Rosand, Center on Global Counter Terrorism Cooperation
Stay tuned here at TWN over the course of this week and part of next for what is sure to be a high-level and provocative discussion.
The full bios of the particpants appear below the fold and can also be found here at the UN Dispatch Terrorism Salon page.
Peter Bergen, New America Foundation
Peter Bergen is a Schwartz Senior Fellow at the New America Foundation, a print and television journalist, and the author of Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden, which has been translated into 18 languages. He is also the author of The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of Al Qaeda’s Leader. Both books were named among the best nonfiction books of the year by The Washington Post, and documentaries based on them were nominated for Emmys in 2002 and 2007. Mr. Bergen is CNN’s terrorism analyst, an adjunct lecturer at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a fellow at New York University’s Center on Law and Security. He is a member of the editorial board of Studies in Conflict and Terrorism and has testified on Capitol Hill. Mr. Bergen holds a M.A in modern history from New College, Oxford University.
Paul Cruickshank, NYU Center on Law and Security
Paul Cruickshank is a Fellow at the Center on Law and Security at New York University’s School of Law. Previously Paul worked as an investigative journalist in London, reporting on al Qaeda and its European affiliates and was part of the CNN reporting team that covered the London July 7, 2005 attacks. He collaborated closely with Peter Bergen in interviewing acquaintances of Osama bin Laden for Bergen’s 2006 oral history The Osama bin Laden I Know and worked with CNN on a two-hour Emmy-nominated documentary In the Footsteps of Bin Laden. Cruickshank has written about al Qaeda and Islamist groups for a number of publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, and Studies in Conflict and Terrorism. He has provided on-air analysis to CNN, BBC, NBC, CBS, BBC, Fox News and Al Jazeera on national security issues. Cruickshank graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in history, and has a Masters degree with Honors in International Relations from the Paul. H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University. He has also worked in the European Parliament in Brussels and at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C.
Greg Djerejian, The Belgravia Dispatch
Gregory Djerejian is a financial services professional, particularly active in commercial real estate and resort development, as well as alternative investments. He also manages a philanthropic organization active in the Republic of Armenia. Previously, Djerejian worked, in conjunction with the State Department, on the “train and equip” program for the Bosnian Federation military and with the International Rescue Committee in the former Yugoslavia. Djerejian has been a keen follower of international politics for many years, having lived in ten countries and travelled to dozens more. He has some expertise in regional issues (Caucasus, FSU, Middle East, Balkans, Western Europe), as well as international law and international organizations (particularly NGOs). He is fluent in French and conversant in Spanish and Russian. Djerejian was admitted as a term member to the Council on Foreign Relations and member of the New York State Bar. He serves as director of several entities, including a NY-based hedge fund and various non-profit entities. He received a B.S.F.S. from the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, before later receiving a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center. In addition, he will shortly be beginning the Executive MBA program at Columbia University. He has been published in various newspapers like the Financial Times and New York Times, and occasionally comments on foreign policy matters at his web-log Belgravia Dispatch. He lives in New York City with his wife and daughter.
Yosri Fouda, Al-Jazeera
Yosri Fouda is the Chief Investigative Correspondent and Former London Bureau Chief for Al-Jazeera. He is also a distinguished visiting professor at the American University in Cairo and the Director of Cairo’s International Center for Journalism (ICFJ). Fouda is the only journalist in the world to have interviewed two of the world’s most wanted men in 2002, prior to their capture. For 48 hours, in an al-Qaeda safe house in Karachi, Pakistan, he listened to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the head of al-Qaeda military committee and the alleged murderer of Wall Street Journal’s Daniel Pearl, and Ramzi Binalshibh, the link between Mohammed Atta and senior al-Qaeda leadership, as they proudly claimed responsibility for the 9/11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon. Having been based in London, England, for the past 12 years, Fouda joined the BBC World Service TV as a ‘roving reporter’ covering war zones and troublesome places in the Balkans, Africa and the Middle East. He moved on to join the Associated Press TV as ‘deputy editor’ for the Middle East desk, before helping establish al-Jazeera in 1996. He started as ‘London Bureau Chief’ and moved on a year later to devise al-Jazeera’s investigative show, “Top Secret”, the first of its kind on Arab TV.
Stephanie Kaplan, Woodrow Wilson Center
Stephanie Kaplan is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she is a member of the MIT Security Studies Program. Her dissertation, “The Jihad Effect,” explores the impact of war on the jihadist terrorist threat from the Soviet-Afghan War to the present. Kaplan is a visiting scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and a New Ideas Fund scholar. Last year she was a pre-doctoral fellow with the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). She has also been a consultant to the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point and Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government. Prior to pursuing her doctorate, Kaplan served as special assistant to the executive and deputy directors of the 9/11 Commission, where she was also managing editor of the Commission’s final report. Before that, she was assistant director for international security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and an associate with the Aspen Strategy Group, a policy program of the Aspen Institute. In 2000, Kaplan graduated Phi Beta Kappa and magna cum laude from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service.
Matthew Levitt, Washington Institute on Near East Policy
Dr. Matthew Levitt is a senior fellow and director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence as well as an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies. He is the author of Hamas: Politics, Charity, and Terrorism in the Service of Jihad and Negotiating Under Fire: Preserving Peace Talks in the Face of Terror Attacks to be released by Rowman & Littlefiled in of August 2008.
Alastair Millar, Center on Global Counter Terrorism Cooperation
Alistair Millar is the Director of the Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation. He also teaches graduate level courses on counterterrorism and US foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University and George Washington University. Millar has written numerous chapters, articles, and reports on international counterterrorism efforts, sanctions regimes, and nonproliferation. He is author, with Eric Rosand, of Allied against Terrorism: What’s Needed to Strengthen Worldwide Commitment.
Eric Rosand, Center on Global Counter Terrorism Cooperation
Eric Rosand is a senior fellow at the Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation in New York and a nonresident fellow at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation. Previously, he served in the US Department of State for nine years, working on counterterrorism issues both in the Office of the Counterterrorism Coordinator and at the US Mission to the United Nations. He is the author of numerous articles, book chapters, and reports on enhancing international and regional counterterrorism cooperation and the co-author, with Alistair Millar of Allied Against Terrorism: What’s Needed to Strengthen Worldwide Commitment (Century; 2006). He has a LLM from Cambridge University, a JD from Columbia University Law School, and a BA from Haverford College.
— Steve Clemons
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