Sixth Annual Terrorism Conference: “Implications of the Arab Spring for Insurgencies, the Jihadist Movement and al-Qaeda” (copy 1)

Agenda

Registration 

8:00 A.M.–8:30 A.M. 

*** 

Welcome 

8:30 A.M.–8:40 A.M.

Glen E. Howard

President, The Jamestown Foundation 

*** 

Panel One:

The Periphery and the Core: The Evolution of AQ and Its Affiliates

8:40 A.M.–10:00 A.M.

David Kilcullen

President and CEO of Caerus Associates 

Bruce Hoffman

Director, Center for Security Studies,

Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University &

Board Member, The Jamestown Foundation

Bruce Riedel

Senior Fellow, The Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Institution

& Board Member, Jamestown Foundation 

Q & A 

*** 

 Coffee Break: 

10:15A.M.–10:45 A.M. 

***

Panel Two:

The Syrian Uprising: Militant Magnet and Regional Reactions 

10:45 A.M.–12:15P.M. 

Chris Zambelis

“A Highly Complex Insurgency: Analyzing the Various Militant Strains

of the Syrian Uprising” 

Senior Analyst, Helios Global, Inc.

Nick Heras 

“The Syrian Uprising and Its Impact on Lebanon”

Jamestown Middle East Analyst

Carole O’Leary

“Arabs and Kurds: The Impact of Local and Cross-Border Identity Politics in Northeastern Syria”

Visiting Scholar, Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law

Emrullah Uslu

“The Syrian Uprising and Turkey’s Struggles with the PKK” 

Assistant Professor, Yeditepe University, Istanbul. Turkey 

Moderator: Alex Vatanka

Fellow, Middle East Institute

Q & A 

***

Luncheon

12:15 P.M.–1:00 P.M. 

***

Luncheon Keynote

1:00 P.M.–1:45 P.M.

Sheikh Falah Ajil Abdul Karim al-Jarba

“The Impact of the Uprising on Syrian Tribes and Cross Border Considerations”

Sheikh of the Shammar Tribe, Syria 

Q & A 

*** 

Intermission

1:45 P.M.–2:00 P.M. 

*** 

Panel Three: 

AQ Affiliates and Jihadist Strategies: From North Africa to the Sahel

2:00 P.M.–3:30 P.M.

Michael W.S. Ryan

“Is There a New Jihadist Threat? Lessons from Libya and Egypt”

Senior Fellow, The Jamestown Foundation

Dario Cristiani 

“Militant Threats in Post-Qaddafi Libya” 

Doctoral Candidate at King’s College, University of London

Andrew McGregor

“The Jihadist Movement in Mali: From Smuggling to State-Building” 

 Senior Editor, Jamestown’s Global Terrorism Analysis program

Jacob Zenn

“The Evolution, Expansion and Trajectory of the Boko Haram Insurgency in Nigeria”

Analyst, The Jamestown Foundation 

Moderator: TBA

Q & A 

*** 

Concluding Remarks

3:30 P.M.–4:15 P.M.

General Michael Hayden

“Post-Election, Post-Bin Laden, Post-Benghazi: Where to Now?”

Former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency 

Q & A

***

 Conclusion

4:15 P.M.

Participant Biographies

Dario Cristiani  

Dario Cristiani is an expert on militant groups in North Africa and a frequent contributor to Jamestown’s publications Eurasia Daily Monitor, Terrorism Monitor and Militant Leadership Monitor. He is a Ph.D. Researcher at King’s College, University of London and senior analyst at the Global Governance Institute in Brussels. Previously, he was a teaching fellow in Political Science and Comparative Politics at the University of Naples L’Orientale in Italy. His main areas of expertise are Security, Politics and International Relations in North Africa and the wider Mediterranean region, Political and Economic Risk, and EU Foreign Policy. 

Michael V.  Hayden

General Michael V. Hayden (USAF Ret.) served as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 2006 to 2009 and was responsible for overseeing the collection of information concerning the plans, intentions and capabilities of America’s adversaries, producing timely analysis for decision makers, and conducting covert operations to thwart terrorists and other enemies of the United States. Before becoming Director of the CIA, General Hayden served as the country’s first Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence—and was the highest-ranking intelligence officer in the armed forces. Earlier, he served as Commander of the Air Intelligence Agency, Director of the Joint Command and Control Warfare Center, Director of the National Security Agency from 1999 to 2005, and Chief of the Central Security Service. General Hayden graduated from Duquesne University with a bachelor’s degree in history in 1967 and a master’s degree in modern American history in 1969. He was a distinguished graduate of the university’s ROTC program, and began his active military service in 1969. General Hayden is currently a principal at the Chertoff Group in Washington, D.C., and a Board Member at The Jamestown Foundation.

Nicholas A. Heras 

Nicholas A. Heras is an independent analyst and consultant on Middle Eastern affairs.  Heras was a National Security Education Program (NSEP) David L. Boren Fellow based in Beirut, Lebanon, from 2010 to 2011, in addition to which he has almost two years of field experience researching the politics of identity, culture, and socio-economics throughout Lebanon. He also has extensive field experience in all regions of Syria, with a particular focus on restive, rural disadvantaged areas, Syrian Arab tribalism, and the politics of ethnic and sectarian mobilization throughout the country. Heras is a regular contributor to The Jamestown Foundation publication Terrorism Monitor, Fair Observer and other publications, on issues of pressing importance to Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran, and the Gulf countries. He holds a B.A. in International Relations and an M.A. in International Communication from the American University (D.C.).           

Bruce Hoffman

Professor Bruce Hoffman is a Board Member of The Jamestown Foundation. He has been studying terrorism and insurgency for more than thirty years. Professor Hoffman is currently a tenured professor at Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service where he is also the Director of both the Center for Security Studies and the Security Studies Program.  Professor Hoffman previously held the Corporate Chair in Counterterrorism and Counterinsurgency at the RAND Corporation and was also Director of RAND’s Washington, D.C., Office.

Professor Hoffman was Scholar-in-Residence for Counterterrorism at the Central Intelligence Agency between 2004 and 2006.  He was also adviser on counterterrorism to the Office of National Security Affairs, Coalition Provisional Authority, Baghdad, Iraq, during the spring of 2004 and from 2004 to 2005 was an adviser on counterinsurgency to the Strategy, Plans, and Analysis Office at Multi-National Forces-Iraq Headquarters, Baghdad. Professor Hoffman was also an adviser to the Iraq Study Group. 

Sheikh Falah Ajil Abdul Karim al-Jarba 

Sheikh Falah is the leader of the largest tribe in Syria, the al-Shammar tribe. He is the son of the now deceased paramount sheikh of the Shammar of Syria, Sheikh Ajil, who died in 2007. In 2004, following the infamous Arab-Kurdish “soccer” riot in Qamishly, northern Syria, Syrian President Bashar Assad attempted to persuade Sheikh Falah’s father to take up arms against the Kurds, but he refused, saying, “We are all one community–we Arabs have lived with our fellow Kurds for hundreds of years.”

David Kilcullen

Dr. David Kilcullen is one of the world’s leading experts on insurgencies and counter-insurgencies. He is the founding President and CEO of Caerus Associates, a strategic design consultancy with a focus on the overlapping problems of conflict, climate change, energy, health and governance. Dr. Kilcullen also serves as an advisor to NATO and a consultant to the U.S. and allied governments, international institutions, industry and NGOs, in conflict and post-conflict environments and the developing world. Dr. Kilcullen is also an Adjunct Professor at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University. Before joining the private sector, Dr. Kilcullen had a distinguished career in the Australian and United States governments, including 22 years as a light infantry officer in the Australian Army, during which he served in counterinsurgency, stability operations, peace operations and military advisory roles in Southeast Asia, the Pacific and the Middle East.

After leaving the Army, Dr. Kilcullen served in Australia’s Office of National Assessments, then with the U.S. State Department. He first served as Chief Strategist in the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism and then as Special Adviser for Counterinsurgency to the Secretary of State. He served in the Iraq War as Senior Counterinsurgency Adviser to General David Petraeus during the successful 2007 “surge” and in Afghanistan as Counterinsurgency Adviser to the NATO International Security Assistance Force during 2009–2010. He was a member of the White House review of Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy in 2008, and he has advised the highest levels of the Bush and Obama administrations.

Dr. Kilcullen’s academic background is in the political anthropology of conflict in traditional societies. His doctoral dissertation, completed in 2000, is a study of the impact of insurgency on political development, and it draws on extended residential fieldwork with guerrillas, militias and local people in remote parts of Indonesia, New Guinea and East Timor. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, regularly teaches and presents at academic institutions and industry conferences worldwide, and he is the author of numerous scholarly articles and books, including The Accidental Guerrilla (2009), Counterinsurgency(2010) and Out of the Mountains (forthcoming), all from Oxford University Press.

Andrew McGregor

Dr. Andrew McGregor is a Senior Editor for Jamestown’s Global Terrorism Analysis program. He is also the Director of Aberfoyle International Security, a Toronto-based agency specializing in security issues related to the Islamic world. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto’s Department of Near and Middle Eastern Civilizations in 2000 and is a former Research Associate of the Canadian Institute of International Affairs. In October 2007, McGregor took over as managing editor of the Jamestown Foundation’s Global Terrorism Analysis publications. He is the author of an archaeological history of Darfur published by Cambridge University in 2001 and publishes frequently on international security issues. His latest book is A Military History of Modern Egypt, published by Praeger Security International in 2006. McGregor provides commentary on military and security issues for newspapers (including the New York Times, USA Today, and The Financial Times), as well as making frequent appearances on radio (BBC, CBC Radio, VOA, Radio Canada International) and television (CBC Newsworld, CTV Newsnet, Foxnews and others). 

Carole O’Leary

Carole O’Leary is a Visiting Scholar at the Program in Law & Religion at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law. Professor O’Leary is currently involved in a project to study religious freedom in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, with a particular focus on the Christian communities there. Since 2003, she has been involved in a series of ongoing and related research projects focusing on understanding the sociopolitical and leadership role of Arab tribal networks, working in region with tribes from Iraq, Syria, Jordan and neighboring countries. O’Leary also organized and led two teams of civic education and human rights experts (2006–2010), working on human rights, democracy and voter education, under grants from the U.S. Department of State. 

O’Leary was an adjunct professorial lecturer at American University’s School of International Service in 1995–2011, appointed to the Division of International Peace and Conflict Resolution (IPCR). Professor O’Leary was also a Scholar-in-Residence from 1996 to 2011 at the former Center for Global Peace. She was also a member of the first Iraq Working Group at the United States Institute of Peace and an outside advisor to the U.S. Department of State Future of Iraq Project (2003), on education and governance. Among her publications, O’Leary is the author of “The Kurds of Iraq: Recent History, Future Prospects,” published in the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal in December 2002. With Charles MacDonald, she is the co-editor of Kurdish Identity: Human Rights and Political Status (University Press of Florida, October 2007).

Bruce Riedel

Bruce Riedel is a Senior Fellow in the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. He retired in 2006 after 30 years service at the Central Intelligence Agency including postings overseas. Riedel was a senior advisor on South Asia and the Middle East to four Presidents of the United States in the staff of the National Security Council at the White House. He was a negotiator at several Arab-Israeli peace summits, including at Camp David and Wye River. He was also Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Near East and South Asia at the Pentagon and a senior advisor at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in Brussels. In January 2009, President Barack Obama asked Mr. Riedel to chair a review of American policy toward Afghanistan and Pakistan, the results of which the President announced in a speech on March 27, 2009. In 2011 he served as an expert advisor to the prosecution of al-Qaeda terrorist Omar Farooq Abdulmutallab in Detroit. In December 2011, Prime Minister David Cameron asked him to brief the United Kingdom’s National Security Council in London on Pakistan.

Mr. Riedel is the author of The Search for al Qaeda: Its Leadership, Ideology and Future andDeadly Embrace: Pakistan, America and the Future of the Global Jihad.  He is a contributor to Which Path to Persia: Options for a New American Strategy Toward Iran, The Arab Awakening and Becoming Enemies: U.S.-Iran Relations and the Iran-Iraq War, 1979–1988.  He teaches at the Johns Hopkins University School for Advanced International Studies. He is a graduate of Brown (B.A.), Harvard (M.A.) and the Royal College of Defense Studies in London.

Michael W. S. Ryan 

Dr. Michael W.S. Ryan is a Senior Fellow at The Jamestown Foundation and an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute.  He is the author of the forthcoming book, Decoding al-Qaeda’s Strategy: The Deep Battle Against America, to be published by Columbia University Press.  The book examines al-Qaeda’s political military strategy based upon Arabic-language sources. Dr. Ryan also acts as an independent consultant and researcher on Middle Eastern security issues.

Dr. Ryan served as Senior Vice President at The Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C. (2008–2009). The White House appointed him as Vice President in The Millennium Challenge Corporation (2006–2008). Previously, Dr. Ryan held senior positions in the Departments of State, Defense, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency after joining the U.S. federal government in 1979 as a Middle East/North Africa analyst for the Department of Defense.

In 1981, Dr. Ryan earned a Ph.D. from the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Harvard University. During his graduate study, he spent three years in Egypt under Fulbright, Smithsonian, and Center for Arabic Study Abroad fellowships. He was also a fellow at The American Research Center in Egypt during this period. He received his undergraduate degree from St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland.

Emrullah Uslu 

Dr. Emrullah Uslu is an assistant professor at Yeditepe Univeristy in Istanbul and Visiting Assistant Professor at University of North Florida. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Utah in Middle East Studies/Political Science in 2009. He worked as a policy analyst for the Turkish National Police’s counterterrorism headquarters for more than ten years. Dr. Uslu has taught courses on Islam and Politics, Terrorism, Middle East Politics, Middle East History and Nationalism. Between 2004 and 2008, he organized annual graduate student conferences titled “The Middle East & Central Asia: Politics, Economics, and Society Conference,” at the University of Utah. In June, 2009, Dr. Uslu delivered a lecture based on his work on the PKK’s crude oil pipeline strategy at a special event hosted by the Jamestown Foundation in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Uslu published a number of articles on Security, Terrorism, the Kurdish Question, Militant Islam, Turkish Nationalism and Turkey’s relations with Egypt. He is the author ofDeep State’s Threat Map: Kurds and Islamists (Derin Devletin Tehdit Haritas?: Dün Kürtler Bugün Cemaatler), published in 2010. The book examines Turkish military’s responses to the Kurdish and Islamist political actors.

Mr. Uslu works as a columnist, contributing regularly to the Turkish daily Taraf and Turkey’s English daily, Today’s Zaman. He is often quoted by the international press, including but not limited to al Jazeera, the Guardian, the Times of London and The Los Angeles Times. Additionally he is a frequent commentator for Turkish television channels and newspapers regarding Middle East affairs, the PKK and the Kurdish question, terrorism, as well as security issues.

Alex Vatanka

Alex Vatanka is a fellow at the Middle East Institute, with a particular focus on Iranian foreign and security policies. From 2006 to 2010, he was the Managing Editor of Jane’s Islamic Affairs Analyst, based in Washington D.C. From 2001 to 2006, he was a senior political analyst at Jane’s in London where he mainly covered the Middle East. He lectures also as a Senior Fellow in Middle East Studies at the U.S. Air Force Special Operations School (USAFSOS) at Hurlburt Field and at Defense Institute of Security Assistance Management (DISAM) at Wright-Patterson AFB.Born in Tehran and raised in Europe, he holds a BA in Political Science (Sheffield University), and an MA in International Relations (Essex University), and is fluent in Farsi and Danish. He is currently working on a book project on Iranian-Pakistani relations and its implications for U.S. national security interests in South West Asia.  

Chris Zambelis

Chris Zambelis is a Senior Analyst specializing in Middle East affairs with Helios Global, Inc., a risk management group based in the Washington, D.C., area.  His primary research interests include geopolitics, domestic politics, security, economics and energy issues relevant to the broader Middle East.  His work supports a wide range of clients in the public, private and non-profit sectors.  A frequent traveler to the Middle East, he has spent significant time in Syria and Lebanon in recent years.  In addition to his work for The Jamestown Foundation, Mr. Zambelis is also a regular contributor to numerous other publications. He holds a B.A. degree in Politics and History from New York University and an M.S. in Foreign Service degree from Georgetown University. 

Jacob Zenn 

Jacob Zenn is an analyst for The Jamestown Foundation, specializing in security issues in Africa, South America, Central Asia and Southeast Asia, and is a frequent contributor to theTerrorism Monitor, Militant Leadership Monitor (MLM) and Eurasia Daily Monitorpublications.  Mr. Zenn is the author of The Jamestown Foundation Occasional Report entitled “Northern Nigeria’s Boko Haram: The Prize in Al-Qaeda’s Africa Strategy,” which analyzes the evolution of al-Qaeda’s Africa strategy and operations in Nigeria, the rise and trajectory of Boko Haram in northern Nigeria, and the relationship between al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and Boko Haram. He carried out field research in Nigeria, Niger, Cameroon and Chad in June 2012.

 Mr. Zenn earned a J.D. from Georgetown Law where he concentrated in Refugee Law and Humanitarian Emergencies and a degree in International Affairs from the Johns Hopkins SAIS Center for Chinese-American Studies in Nanjing, China. During his graduate study, he received a fellowship from the American Society of International Law and Chadbourne & Parke LLP in Yemen and was selected for a State Department Critical Language Scholarship in Indonesia. His experience includes consulting with risk analysis firms and geospatial and socio-cultural research providers, serving as an educator in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and working as a legal adviser providing expertise on the international law and best practices related to the freedom of association.