Eleventh Annual Terrorism Conference
Wednesday, December 13, 2017
8:55 A.M.–4:15 P.M.
The National Press Club
Grand Ballroom
529 14th Street NW, 13th Floor
Washington, D.C. 20045
**Full video recording available below.
–
Agenda
Registration
8:15 A.M.–8:55 A.M.
* * *
Welcome
8:55 A.M.–9:00 A.M.
Glen E. Howard
President, The Jamestown Foundation
* * *
Keynote Address
9:00 A.M.–10:00 A.M.
Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster
U.S. National Security Advisor
* * *
Coffee Break
10:00 A.M.–10:15 A.M.
* * *
Mid-Morning Keynote
10:15 A.M. A.M.–10:45 A.M.
“Global Jihadists in a Turbulent Middle East: A Policymaker’s Perspective”
Michael Vickers
Former Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence &
Board Member, The Jamestown Foundation
* * *
Panel One:
The Changing Landscape of Jihadist Movements
10:45 A.M.–11:45 A.M.
“The Post-Caliphate Salafi-Jihadi Movement and the Threat to Western Societies”
Bruce Hoffman
Director, Center for Security Studies,
Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University &
Board Member, The Jamestown Foundation
“From Violent Radicalization to Terrorist Involvement:
Spain as a Template for Jihadist Mobilization”
Fernando Reinares
Director of the Program on Global Terrorism, Elcano Royal Institute;
Professor of Security Studies, Universidad Rey Juan Carlos
Moderator:
Glen E. Howard
President, The Jamestown Foundation
Q & A
* * *
Luncheon
11:45 A.M.–12:45 P.M.
* * *
Panel Two:
Syria, Islamic State and the Regional Powers
12:45 P.M.–2:00 P.M.
“From State to Insurgency: Islamic State After Raqqa”
Nicholas A. Heras
Middle East Security Fellow, Center for a New American Strategy (CNAS)
“The Conflict in Syria and the Roles of Islamic State, Hezbollah and Iran:
the Jordanian Perspective”
Shehab al-Makahleh
Executive Director, Geostrategic Media Center
“Turkey’s Approach to Regional Security After the Fall of Raqqa”
Mitat Çelikpala
Dean of the Faculty of Economics, Administrative and Social Sciences,
Kadir Has University, Istanbul
“Russia’s Return to the Middle East”
Pavel Felgenhauer
Non-Resident Senior Fellow, The Jamestown Foundation
Moderator/Commentator:
“Iran’s Endgame in Syria”
Alex Vatanka
Senior Fellow, Middle East Institute & The Jamestown Foundation
Q & A
* * *
Coffee Break
2:00 P.M.–2:15 P.M.
* * *
Panel Three:
2018 Trend Lines in Militant Movements
2:15 P.M.–3:30 P.M.
“Militant Movements in West Africa and the Sahel”
Jacob Zenn
Fellow of African and Eurasian Affairs, The Jamestown Foundation
“The Reorganization of Islamist Movements in North Africa”
Dario Cristiani
Director of the Executive Training and Adjunct Professor of
International Affairs & Conflict Studies, Vesalius College
“Taliban Strategy in Afghanistan: 2017 and Beyond”
Abubakar Siddique
Senior Correspondent, Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty
Moderator:
Alexander Sehmer
Editor, Terrorism Monitor, The Jamestown Foundation
Q & A
* * *
Afternoon Keynote
3:30 P.M.–4:15 P.M.
General Michael V. Hayden, USAF (Ret.)
Former Director of the Central Intelligence Agency &
Board Member, The Jamestown Foundation
Introduction:
Willem de Vogel
Chairman of the Board,
The Jamestown Foundation
Q & A
* * *
Conclusion
4:15 P.M.
Full Video:
Participant Biographies
Shehab al-Makahleh
Shehab Al-Makahleh is a senior media and policy adviser in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates. He has been working for a number of media outlets as media consultant. He is president of the Jordan-based Political Studies of the Middle East Center and the executive director of Geostrategic and Media Center. Al-Makahleh has been working for several Middle Eastern countries as a political, military and security expert. He has been working as a media advisor for notable personalities in the Middle East. As an anchor journalist and columnist at various media outlets and think tanks, al-Makahleh has published many academic and political books. He has taken part in many international conferences in the United States, United Kingdom, France, Germany, Norway, Russia, Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon, the UAE, Bahrain, Iraq, Switzerland, Austria and Sweden. He has chronicled the modern history of his country in Jordan’s Spiritual Leader: King Hussein’s Charismatic Qualities and His Majesty King Abdullah II’s Traits: Leader and Teacher. Al-Makahleh has obtained unprecedented access to extremists who traveled to Syria and Iraq to fight and are now serving time in prison, which helped him finish his book: Into the Terrorist Minds: Through Their Own Eyes. Al-Makahleh holds a PhD in politics, first Master’s Degree in Media, second Master’s degree in international politics, a BA in Media and a BA in Economics and Statistics from the University of Jordan.
Mitat Çelikpala
Dr. Mitat Çelikpala is Professor of International Relations and the Dean of Faculty of Economics, Administrative and Social Sciences at Kadir Has University, Istanbul. He teaches graduate and undergraduate courses on Eurasian security, energy and critical infrastructure security/protection, Turkish foreign and domestic policy, and the Caucasus. His areas of expertise are the Caucasus, North Caucasian diaspora groups, people and security in the Caucasus and Black Sea regions, Turkish-Russian relations, energy security, and critical infrastructure protection. He has published multiple academic articles and analyses on the above-mentioned areas, and he regularly appears in the media to discuss these topics.
Prof. Çelikpala is a board member of the International Relations Council of Turkey since 2004 and the Managing Editor of the Journal of International Relations: Academic Journal. He previously served as an academic advisor to NATO’s Center of Excellence for Defense Against Terrorism, in Ankara (2009–2012), particularly on regional security and critical infrastructure protection. Moreover, he was a board member at the Strategic Research and Study Center (SAREM), Turkish General Staff (2005–2011), as well as an Academic Advisor to the Center for Strategic Research (SAM), at the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2002–2010) and to the Caspian Strategy Institute, Istanbul, Turkey (2012–2013). He was a Senior Associate Member at St. Antony’s College, Oxford University, UK (2005–2006).
Dario Cristiani
Dario Cristiani is currently the Director of the Executive Training in “Global Risk Analysis & Crisis Management” and an adjunct professor of International Affairs & Conflict Studies at Vesalius College (VUB) in Brussels. When not in Brussels, he is based in Tunis, where he carries out fieldwork for a number of research projects and a book he is writing on Maghrebi security. He also runs a political risk business, advising companies and institutions on political and economic risk with specific reference to Mediterranean markets. A regular contributor to Jamestown Foundation’s publications, he received his PhD in Middle East & Mediterranean Studies from King’s College London in 2015. Previously, he has been a Tübitak Research Fellow in Istanbul (2013) and a teaching and E-Learning assistant in Political Science, Comparative Politics and Mediterranean Studies at the University of Naples “L’Orientale” (2007-2009). His primary areas of expertise are security, international relations and history of the Mediterranean, the Maghreb and the Sahel, terrorism, comparative politics and political risk.
Pavel Felgenhauer
Dr. Pavel E. Felgenhauer is a Moscow-based defense analyst and columnist at Novaya Gazeta. Felgenhauer was born in Moscow, Russia, and he graduated from Moscow State University in 1975. He served as researcher and senior research officer in the Soviet Academy of Sciences (Moscow) and received his Ph.D. from the Soviet Academy of Sciences in 1988.
Felgenhauer published numerous articles on topics dealing with Russian foreign and defense policies, military doctrine, arms trade, military-industrial complex and so on. From January 1991 to January 1993, he was associated with the Nezavisimaya Gazeta (Independent Newspaper), in Moscow, as Defense Analyst and Defense Correspondent. From February 1993 until September 1999, Felgenhauer was member of the editorial board and Chief Defense Correspondent of Moscow daily Segodnya (Today). And from May 1994 until October 2005, Felgenhauer published a regular column on defense in the English-language local daily The Moscow Times.
In July 2006, after more than six years as an independent defense analyst, Felgenhauer joined the staff of Novaya Gazeta. Felgenhauer continues to provide regular comments on Russian defense-related issues to many other local and international media organizations. Since June 2006, Felgenhauer has also been a weekly contributor to The Jamestown Foundation publication Eurasia Daily Monitor.
Gen. Michael V. Hayden, USAF (Ret.)
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 the Middle East Security Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) and a Senior Analyst at The Jamestown Foundation. Previously, he received the Bacevich Fellowship at CNAS (2016-2017). From 2013 to 2014, he served as a Research Associate at the National Defense University (NDU) where he worked on a project that studied the impact of the Syrian conflict on the greater Middle East region. He has over two years in-depth field research experience in all regions of Lebanon, Syria and Jordan and has also conducted substantive research in Turkey.
He has presented on the topic of armed groups in the Syrian civil war, including the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), at the annual U.S. Naval War College, Center for Irregular Warfare and Armed Groups (USNWC-CIWAG) Symposium; he also presented a lecture on ISIL’s state formation strategy to the U.S. SOCOM J3I. As a regular contributor to The Jamestown Foundation’s Militant Leadership Monitor and Terrorism Monitor, Mr. Heras is a prolific author of analytical works focusing on security issues in the greater Middle East region. He has also authored a monograph, Policy Focus #132, The Potential for an Assad Statelet in Syria, through the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP)’s Soref Fellowship program.
Bruce Hoffman
Professor Bruce Hoffman has been studying terrorism and insurgency for almost four decades. He is a tenured professor in 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. In addition, he is a Professor of Terrorism Studies (part-time) at St Andrews University, Scotland. 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. He was appointed by the U.S. Congress to serve as a commissioner on the Independent Commission to Review the FBI’s Post-9/11 Response to Terrorism and Radicalization and co-wrote its report. Hoffman was Scholar-in-Residence for Counterterrorism at the Central Intelligence Agency between 2004 and 2006; an adviser on counterterrorism to the Office of National Security Affairs, Coalition Provisional Authority, Baghdad, Iraq in 2004, and from 2004 to 2005, an adviser on counterinsurgency to the Strategy, Plans, and Analysis Office at Multi-National Forces-Iraq Headquarters, Baghdad. He was also an adviser to the Iraq Study Group. He is the author of Inside Terrorism (2006). Professor Hoffman’s most recent books are The Evolution of the Global Terrorist Threat: Cases From 9/11 to Osama bin Laden’s Death (2014), and Anonymous Soldiers: The Struggle for Israel, 1917-1947 (2015).
Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster
Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster is the U.S. National Security Advisor.
LTG McMaster has led a distinguished military career. Prior to his appointment as National Security Advisor, he served as the Director, Army Capabilities Integration Center and Deputy Commanding General, Futures, U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command. Additionally, his previous posts include serving as Commanding General, Maneuver Center of Excellence and Fort Benning from June 2012 to July 2014, and as Commander, Combined Joint Inter-Agency Task Force Shafafiyat (Transparency) in Kabul, Afghanistan.
LTG McMaster was commissioned as an officer in the United States Army upon graduation from the United States Military Academy in 1984. He holds a PhD in military history from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and he is the author of the award-winning book Dereliction of Duty: Lyndon Johnson, Robert McNamara, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Lies That Led to Vietnam.
Fernando Reinares
Fernando Reinares (Logroño, La Rioja, Spain, 1960) is Director of the Program on Global Terrorism at Elcano Royal Institute and Professor of Security Studies at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, both in Madrid. Additionally, he is a Wilson Center Global Fellow, as well as an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University. From 2007 to 2009, he served as First chairman of the European Commission Expert Group on Violent Radicalization. Prior to that, also served as Senior Advisor on Antiterrorist Policy to Spain’s Minister of Interior (2004-2006). Among other academic and civilian distinctions, Professor Reinares has received from the Spanish authorities the Cross of Military Merit (2009) and the Cross of Police Merit (2012). He was awarded the Prize for Excellence in Research on Social and Legal Sciences from Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (2016) as well as the highest personal decoration of the regional Government of his native La Rioja region (2016).
He is the author of several books. Some of his most recent titles include Al Qaeda’s Revenge: The 2004 Madrid Train Bombings (New York and Washington, DC: Columbia University Press and Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2017); Estado Islámico en España [ISIS in Spain, with Carola García-Calvo] (Madrid: Real Instituto Elcano, 2016); The Evolution of the Global Terrorism Threat (Nueva York: Columbia University Press, 2014, edited with Bruce Hoffman); and Spain’s best seller ¡Matadlos! Quién estuvo detrás del 11-M y por qué se atentó en España (Kill them! Who Was Behind the Madrid Train Bombings and Why Was Spain Targeted) (Barcelona: Galaxia Gutenberg, 2014).
Alexander Sehmer
Alexander Sehmer is the editor of The Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor. Now in its 13th year of publication, Terrorism Monitor was the first publication to exclusively examine al-Qaeda-linked groups and its offshoots. As editor, Mr. Sehmer oversees the more than 500 analysts who have written for Jamestown on the issues of terrorism since it first began publication.
Mr. Sehmer has a master’s degree in International Studies and Diplomacy from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London, and he is well versed in Middle Eastern affairs from time spent time living and working in the region. He works as a journalist and consultant, and is the co-founder of the political risk research company Claritage Emerging Markets. Previously, Mr. Sehmer has contributed to a number of publications and worked for al-Jazeera English, The Independent and ITV News.
Abubakar Siddique
Abubakar Siddique is a senior correspondent for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL). Based in Prague, he covers the Middle East, South Asia, and Central Asia, with a particular focus on Afghanistan and Pakistan. Siddique has spent the past decade and a half researching and writing about terrorism, security, political and humanitarian issues in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Pashtun heartland, the border region where he was born. His background and professional experience have given him a specialized knowledge of the politics, social life and security situation in this strategic and volatile region. Siddique’s unique expertise is brought to bear in The Pashtun Question: The Unresolved Key to the Future of Pakistan and Afghanistan (London: Hurst and Company, 2013). The book is an illuminating examination of Pashtun history and the rise of militant groups such the Taliban, al-Qaeda and allied extremist movements, focusing on their composition, leadership, ideologies and funding arrangements. The book investigates the risks – and opportunities – presented to the international community by the continuing instability in the region, and prescribe a course of action to prevent the situation from spiraling to further disaster.
Alex Vatanka
Alex Vatanka is a Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute and at The Jamestown Foundation. He specializes in Middle Eastern regional security affairs with a particular focus on Iran. From 2006 to 2010, he was the Managing Editor of Jane’s Islamic Affairs Analyst. From 2001 to 2006, he was a senior political analyst at Jane’s in London (UK) where he mainly covered the Middle East. Alex is also a Senior Fellow in Middle East Studies at the US Air Force Special Operations School (USAFSOS) at Hurlburt Field and teaches as an Adjunct Professor at DISAM at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
He has testified before the U.S. Congress and lectured widely for both governmental and commercial audiences, including the U.S. Departments of State and Defense, U.S. intelligence agencies, U.S. Congressional staff, and Middle Eastern energy firms. Beyond Jane’s, the Middle East Institute and The Jamestown Foundation, he has written extensively for such outlets as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The National Interest, the Jerusalem Post, Journal of Democracy and the Council of Foreign Relations.
Born in Tehran, he holds a BA in Political Science (Sheffield University, UK), and an MA in International Relations (Essex University, UK), and is fluent in Farsi and Danish. He is the author of Iran-Pakistan: Security, Diplomacy, and American Influence (2015), and contributed chapters to other books, including Authoritarianism Goes Global (2016). He is presently working on his second book, The Making of Iranian Foreign Policy: Contested Ideology, Personal Rivalries and the Domestic Struggle to Define Iran’s Place in the World.
Michael Vickers
Dr. Michael Vickers is widely recognized as one of the nation’s top national security professionals, with unprecedented senior tenure across Republican and Democratic administrations. He was a key operational strategist for the two great wars of our time: the operation in the 1980s to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan that helped bring an end to the Cold War — the largest and most successful covert action program in the history of the CIA — and the ongoing war with al-Qaeda. He played a major policy and planning role in the operation that killed Osama bin Ladin.
From January 2011 to May 2015, Vickers served as the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, the Chief Executive Officer of the Defense Intelligence Enterprise, an $80 billion, 180,000-person, global operation that includes the National Security Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, National Reconnaissance Office, Defense Security Service, and the intelligence components of the Military Services and Combatant Commands. As the USD(I), he conceived and led a comprehensive transformation of defense intelligence capabilities.
From 2007 to 2011, he served as the first and only Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations, Low-Intensity Conflict and Interdependent Capabilities. As the ASD SO/LIC&IC, Vickers served as the “Service” Secretary for all Special Operations Forces – a 70,000-person, $10 billion enterprise with personnel deployed in 90 countries – and had policy oversight of all of DoD’s core operational capabilities – strategic forces (nuclear forces, missile defense, space, cyber), conventional forces (air, ground and maritime), and Special Operations Forces. He conceived and led the largest expansion of Special Operations Forces in our nation’s history.
Earlier, during the nearly decade and a half that spanned the operational phase of his career, he served as a Special Forces Non-Commissioned Officer, Special Forces Officer and CIA Operations Officer, and had operational and combat experience in Central America and the Caribbean, the Middle East, and South and Central Asia. As the principal strategist for the multi-billion dollar effort that defeated the Red Army in Afghanistan, Vickers oversaw the policy, operations, training, and logistics of a covert enterprise that spanned several continents.
Dr. Vickers has received the nation’s highest awards in the fields of intelligence and defense, including the Presidential National Security Medal. He holds a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins, an MBA from the Wharton School, and a B.A. from the University of Alabama.
He is currently working on a memoir of his career, to be published by Knopf in 2018. He is an executive vice president with In-Q-Tel, the Intelligence Community’s strategic investment arm, a senior advisor to the Boston Consulting Group, and a principal with the Telemus Group. He also serves on several corporate, government and non-profit boards.
Jacob Zenn
Jacob Zenn is a Fellow of African and Eurasian Affairs at The Jamestown Foundation. He is an expert on Boko Haram and a consultant on countering violent extremism for U.S think-tanks and international organizations in Nigeria and Central Asia. He is the author of “Northern Nigeria’s Boko Haram: The Prize in al-Qaeda’s Africa Strategy,” published by The Jamestown Foundation in 2012 and based on his fieldwork in Boko Haram’s main area of operations in northern Nigeria, northern Cameroon, Chad and southern Niger. Mr. Zenn also writes reports on Nigerian security for The Jamestown Foundation’s Terrorism Monitor and West Point Combating Terrorism Center.
In February and November 2013, Mr. Zenn provided testimony on Islamist Militant Threats to Central Asia and the Threat of Boko Haram and Ansaru in Nigeria to the U.S. Congress. Mr. Zenn speaks Arabic, Swahili, Chinese, French and Spanish in addition to his native English. He holds a J.D. from Georgetown Law, where he earned the commendation of Global Law Scholar.
**Please note that the dress code for this event is business attire or working uniform.
***All ticket purchases are non-refundable.
