Violent Extremist Mobilization in Global Context: What Works (and What Doesn’t) to Prevent Recruiting, GW’s Central Asia Program and RFE/RL, GW Univ. DC

Central Asia Program

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GW’s Central Asia Program and RFE/RL are happy to announce Not In Our Name
Oct 16 @ 2:30 PM – 6:00 PM
GW’s Central Asia Program and RFE/RL are happy to announce Not In Our Name @ Lindner Family Commons (602)
According to recent estimates, countries of the former Soviet Union are the largest single source of foreign fighters in the Syria/Iraq conflict – more than neighboring states in the Middle East. Although they share no cultural or language ties to Syria or Iraq, it is estimated that more than 4,200 Central Asians have joined the conflict. Communities across the region will feel the effects for decades as those exposed to the horrors of war and extremist ideology return. The challenge Central Asian communities face from extremist groups is real, but so is their determination to fight back on a social and state level.
Not In Our Name, produced by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), is the first regional counter-extremism project ever produced for Central Asia. Staff traveled to diverse areas within the region, exploring and reporting on how residents can work together at the local and national level to prevent the spread of violence and extremism. This unique project collected video portraits of individuals who lost family members in Syria and Iraq, and presented those portraits to young people from Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, asking them to share their experiences and perspectives.
RFE/RL’s goal is to use journalism to empower communities to stand up to violent extremist recruiters that claim to represent them. Town halls were held in each country with two different audiences–those directly affected by extremist recruiting and those who have not been impacted. A final session brings all participants together to share their very different experiences and learn from one another.
Uzbek, Kazakh, Tajik, and Kyrgyz participants from all ten town halls agreed there are no simple answers. This film follows them as they come to a deeper understanding of the challenges they face and consider what they can do together to form strong communities that take a stand and declare Not In Our Name.
2:30-3:30pm. Panel 1. Research Results
Noah Tucker (Executive Editor Not In Our Name and CAP associate), Serik Besseimbaev (Lead Project Moderator, Project Design Consultant Not In Our Name), Asel Murzakulova (Project Deputy Editor, Producer Not In Our Name)
3:30-4:10pm. Film screening
4:10-4:30pm. Coffee-break
4:30-6:00pm. Panel 2. Violent Extremist Mobilization in Global Context: What Works (and What Doesn’t) to Prevent Recruiting?
Peter Bergen (New America Foundation), Daniel Kimmage (Global Engagement Center, US Department of State), Haroon Ullah (US Agency for Global Media/BBG)
Registration for this event is required.
To apply

“The Future of Jihad,” with Peter Bergen and Lt. Gen. Abdulwahab al-Saedi, Kennedy School, Harvard

Seminar – Harvard Faculty, Fellows, Staff, and Students
“The Future of Jihad,” with Peter Bergen and Lt. Gen. Abdulwahab al-Saedi
RSVP

Wed., Oct. 17, 2018 | 12:00pm – 1:30pm

John F. Kennedy School of Government – Littauer Building, Belfer Center Library, Room L369
Series
Intelligence Seminar Series

The Intelligence Project an Saudi & GCC Security Project will host a lunch seminar with Peter Bergen and Lieutenant General Abdulwahab al-Saedi, on Wednesday, October 17th from 12:00-1:30pm in the Belfer Center Library (L369).

Lunch will be provided. Admission will be on a first come, first served basis.

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Lt. General Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi, commander for the Iraqi counterterrorism forces’ operation to re-take Fallujah from Islamic State militants, speaks at a military camp outside Fallujah, Iraq, Monday, June 27, 2016.
CNN
Lt. General Abdul-Wahab al-Saadi, commander for the Iraqi counterterrorism forces’ operation to re-take Fallujah from Islamic State militants, speaks at a military camp outside Fallujah, Iraq, Monday, June 27, 2016.
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What is the next evolution of Islamic terrorism?

Please join the Intelligence Project and the Saudi & GCC Security Project for a lunch seminar with Peter Bergen and Lt. Gen Abdulwahab al-Saedi on “The Future of Jihad.” Mr. Bergen and General al-Saedi will discuss the underlying problems in the Middle East that led to the rise of Daesh, and continue to exist today, that will surely produce a so-called “son of ISIS”.

Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He is the author of “United States of Jihad: Investigating America’s Homegrown Terrorists.” In 1997, as a producer for CNN, Bergen produced bin Laden’s first television interview, in which he declared war against the United States for the first time to a Western audience.

Lieutenant General Abdulwahab al-Saedi (Arabic: عبد الوهاب الساعدي‎‎الفريق الركن) is the Deputy Commander of the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Command. Since 2008, Al-Saedi has been a key leader in the war against Iraqi-based terrorist groups. He was the Operations Commander of Iraqi military forces from 2014 through 2015, overseeing critical Iraqi victories in the battle for Baiji oil fields and the Second Battle of Tikrit. In 2016, al-Saedi led the operation to liberate the city of Fallujah from ISIS forces. Subsequently, in 2017, he led Iraqi Counter-Terrorism forces successful effort to defeat ISIS in Mosul. Al-Saedi has never lost a battle that he commanded.

https://www.cnn.com/2017/12/15/opinions/it-wasnt-trump-but-this-generals-elite-soldiers-who-defeated-isis-bergen/index.html

The totalitarian prince: Trump’s questionable friend in the Middle East, CNN.com

The totalitarian prince: Trump’s questionable friend in the Middle East

By Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst
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Prominent Saudi journalist missing in Turkey 02:25

“Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He has been a frequent visitor to Saudi Arabia since 2005.”

(CNN)The mysterious disappearance of Saudi writer and Washington Post contributor Jamal Khashoggi after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul last week has cast a spotlight on the Saudi regime, which is dominated by 33-year-old Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (known commonly as MBS).

This, in turn, raises questions about the nature of the big bet that the Trump administration has placed on the Crown Prince.

For every positive move that MBS has made — giving women the right to drive, allowing concerts in his kingdom, trying to open up the statist, oil-dependent Saudi economy and curtailing the powers of the feared religious police — he has also accumulated a long list of errors.

The Saudi military intervention in neighboring Yemen that began in 2015, has, to put it mildly, not been a success. Houthi rebels there have grown closer to Iran, Yemen remains in the grips of a deadly humanitarian crisis and thousands of civilians have been killed in the conflict.

After more than a year, the blockade of Qatar by a number of Arab states, in which the Saudis are a key player, remains in a standoff with no end in sight. In international law, a blockade amounts to an act of war. Qatar is seeking arbitration of the matter at the United Nations, but adjudicating these kind of cases can take years.

Complicating matters, Turkey is aligned with Qatar against the Arab states involved in the blockade and, if the Saudis have murdered Khashoggi on Turkish soil, as anonymous Turkish officials have alleged to the Washington Post, regional tensions will be further inflamed. Saudi officials have denied this allegation.

But those are not the only countries in the region that MBS has upset. MBS clumsily forced the Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who is a dual Lebanese-Saudi citizen, to announce his resignation when he was visiting Saudi Arabia last November. MBS believed that Hariri was too deferential to Hezbollah, which is a significant political force in Lebanon, as well as a client of Iran. Hariri eventually reversed himself and returned to Lebanon. The whole MBS ploy backfired, as both Hariri and Hezbollah emerged stronger after the bizarre episode.

Also, in November, MBS ordered the detention of hundreds of businessmen and princes on allegations of corruption. Imprisoned in the luxurious confines of the Ritz Carlton in Riyadh, they were gradually released in what looked like a shakedown rather than any genuine legal process — but only after huge sums of money had been extracted from them, according to the New York Times. The Saudi government has denied any wrongdoing.

MBS has also arrested a host of innocuous civil society activists, a number of whom face a possible death penalty. They range from Shia activists hoping for greater rights for the Shia minority in the kingdom, such as Israa al-Ghomgham, a 29-year-old woman, to Salman al-Oudah, a prominent 61-year-old cleric with over 14 million Twitter followers .

Despite giving women the right to drive, in May of this year, MBS arrested some of the key women who had led the movement to allow women to drive. At the time, Khashoggi commented, “It’s a war on activism. He wants the people to step aside and accept what he is giving them and he will lead them into the future.”

Why is MBS doing all of this? Because he is moving Saudi Arabia toward a totalitarian dictatorship in which all aspects of society are controlled by him and all forms of dissent are stifled, an approach which is further reinforced by the disappearance of Khashoggi. It’s an old playbook going back to Louis XIV of France, who is thought to have said, “L’état, c’est moi,” which means, “I am the state.”

This is of particular concern given the Trump administration’s warm embrace of MBS. Trump made his first overseas presidential trip to Saudi Arabia. Usually, American presidents make their first presidential trips to close democratic allies. But Trump views Saudi Arabia as the principal bulwark in the Middle East against Iran, while his son-in-law Jared Kushner has hopes that MBS will play a key role in settling the Israeli-Palestinian dispute.
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Since then, the Trump administration has made little effort to critique the Saudi kingdom, neither for the thousands of civilian casualties in Yemen, nor its imprisonment of businessmen, royals, clerics and civil society activists at home.

On Monday, Trump did say he was “concerned” about Khashoggi’s disappearance. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to the United States, Prince Khalid bin Salman, who is MBS’s brother, said claims that Khashoggi had been killed in Istanbul were “absolutely false, and baseless.”

If evidence emerges that Khashoggi was indeed murdered in Istanbul, US sanctions should be levied on the kingdom.

The Trump administration properly put sanctions on Russia earlier this year after evidence showed that a former Russian agent and his daughter living in the United Kingdom were the targets of a Russian assassination plot using a nerve agent. Why should the Saudis be treated differently?

The awful disappearance of Jamal Khashoggi, CNN.com

By Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst

“Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He is the author of “The Osama bin Laden I Know: An Oral History of al-Qaeda’s Leader.” See more opinion at CNN.”

(CNN)Jamal Khashoggi, a prominent Saudi writer, vanished on Tuesday after entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul to obtain paperwork so he could marry his Turkish fiancée. He has not been seen or heard from since.

As a columnist for the Washington Post, Khashoggi was a frequent critic of the Saudi regime. Khashoggi was living in self-imposed exile in the United States.

On Saturday, Turkish officials told the Washington Post that Khashoggi was murdered at the Saudi consulate.

CNN has not been able to independently confirm these reports and a Saudi official has denied them.

Earlier in the week, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had told Bloomberg News that Khashoggi had left the consulate unmolested, but if that was the case, why hasn’t he contacted anyone?

Media outlets around the world have reported on Khashoggi’s mysterious disappearance. If Khashoggi had left the consulate unharmed, it’s inconceivable he wouldn’t have informed his fiancée, family, friends and colleagues at the Washington Post.

I have known Khashoggi for more than a decade and am appalled at the possibility that the Saudi government would engineer the disappearance of a writer who worked tirelessly to promote civilized, humane values.

Khashoggi and bin Laden’s paths diverged

I first came to know Khashoggi when I was reporting on Osama bin Laden. As young men, Khashoggi and bin Laden knew each other well because Khashoggi was the first journalist from a major Arab news organization to profile bin Laden when he was fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan in the late 1980s. Both men were idealistic and religious and were opposed to the communist invasion of a Muslim country and the brutal tactics of the Soviet military.

On May 4, 1988, Khashoggi wrote a story for Arab News that quoted bin Laden as saying, “It was God alone who protected us from the Russians during their offensive last year. Reliance upon God is the main source of our strength.”

Seven years later, when bin Laden was based in Sudan, Khashoggi visited him there. Bin Laden told his old friend that he was thinking of returning to Saudi Arabia and renouncing his war against the Saudi regime. That, of course, didn’t happen — and in 1996 bin Laden moved to Afghanistan, where he launched his war against the United States.

While bin Laden became the world’s most wanted terrorist, Khashoggi went on to have a distinguished career as a writer and editor and also an adviser to Prince Turki al-Faisal, who was the Saudi ambassador to both the United Kingdom and the United States.

The totalitarian regime in Saudi Arabia

The disappearance of Khashoggi is of a piece with much that the Saudi regime of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is doing.

In 2015, bin Salman, who is often referred to as MBS, launched a war in Yemen in which at least 6,500 civilians have been killed, many of them from Saudi munitions, according to the United Nations in a report that was released in August.

The UN report noted that, “air strikes have hit residential areas, markets, funerals, weddings, detention facilities, civilian boats and even medical facilities.”

The Saudis have also arrested a range of civil society activists and conservative clerics, including some who may face death sentences.

Saudi prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for a 29-year-old Shia female activist accused of organizing demonstrations for greater Shia rights who was arrested in December.
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Similarly, the Saudis are seeking the death penalty for a prominent, reformist cleric, Salman Al-Oudah, who has called for elections in the Saudi kingdom.

Saudi Arabia was once a consensus-based absolute monarchy, but under MBS’s direction it is increasingly becoming a secularizing totalitarian dictatorship.

While there is much to praise in some of what MBS has done, such as removing the feared religious police from the streets and making real efforts to reform the heavily oil-dependent Saudi economy, there is also much that is inexcusable.

There is no hard evidence as yet that Khashoggi was murdered, but if such evidence were to emerge and the Saudis are found to be responsible, the United States should impose sanctions on the Saudis just as the Trump administration did in August against the Russians following their use of a nerve agent to attempt to kill a former Russian agent and his daughter in the United Kingdom.

Khashoggi, after all, was both a legal resident of the United States and was employed by a major American media institution.

2019 Modern Warfare Symposium, Ft. Bragg, NC

Forum on Returning Foreign Fighters, Doha, Qatar

Forum on Returning Foreign Fighters

WORKSHOP SESSION

Co-hosted with
The United Nations Security Council Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) & The Global Research Network

30 October 2018
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The Forum on Returning Foreign Fighters is a collaborative international effort to bring together key stakeholders working on the issue of foreign fighters. Governments are at the forefront of dealing with this challenge, and their citizens’ safety remains their number one concern. However, for progress to be sustainable, the response must be comprehensive and addressed by the whole of society.

Little about the trajectory of terrorism is predictable, especially in a world in flux. One certainty is that terrorism will continue to be amongst the most pressing international security challenges for years to come. The extent to which those who have left the conflicts in Iraq and Syria will wish to regroup, resurge, recruit and recreate what they have lost is yet to be determined. There is disagreement over the threat that returning foreign fighters may present to their countries of residence or origin, or to other countries they transit through or seek temporary refuge in. However, it is inevitable that those who wished to fight alongside or otherwise support terrorist groups, especially the…

so-called Islamic State (IS), will remain committed to the form of violent jihad that both al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have popularized, within and outside the Muslim world. The Forum on Returning Foreign Fighters provides an opportunity for researchers, public officials, policymakers, diplomats, academics, practitioners and top intelligence, military, and law enforcement professionals, to come together with governments in order to solidify the network of those working to address the foreign fighter phenomenon and its effects on vulnerable communities and global security.

Key objectives of the forum are to share information and best practices and set a robust research agenda to identify current shortcomings and fill critical knowledge gaps. Most importantly, as governments are struggling to create effective policies and work together collaboratively to implement responses designed by international bodies, the conference will serve as a platform to address the ways in which various efforts, notably UNSCR 2178 and UNSCR 2396, can be operationalized within and across nation states.
Key Speakers

KEYNOTE ADDRESS BY
His Excellency Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs
State of Qatar
Read Bio

FIRESIDE CHAT WITH
His Excellency Panos Kammenos
Minister of National Defence
Greece

With New York Times, Pulitzer Prize Winner Charlie Savage
Read Bio
Panelists & Moderators
Ian Acheson, FRSA
Ian Acheson, FRSA

Director of National Security Programmes

Sampson Hall

Read Bio
Fionnuala Ni Aolain
Fionnuala Ni Aolain

United Nations Special Rapporteur

Protection and Promotion of Human Rights while Countering Terrorism

Read Bio
Maj. Gen. Abdul Aziz al-Ansari
Maj. Gen. Abdul Aziz al-Ansari

Chairman of National Counter-Terrorism Committee

State of Qatar

Read Bio
Richard Barrett
Richard Barrett

CMG OBE

The Global Strategy Network

Read Bio
Peter Bergen
Peter Bergen

CNN National Security Analyst and Vice President Global Studies & Fellows

New America

Read Bio
Jason Blazakis
Jason Blazakis

Professor

Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey

Read Bio
Mia Bloom
Mia Bloom

Professor of Communication

Georgia State University

Read Bio
Daniel Byman
Daniel Byman

Vice Dean and Professor, School of Foreign Service

Georgetown University

Read Bio
Fabrizio Carboni
Fabrizio Carboni

Director for Near and Middle East

International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)

Read Bio
Colin P. Clarke
Colin P. Clarke

Senior Research Fellow

The Soufan Center

Read Bio
Steve Clemons
Steve Clemons

Editor at Large

The Atlantic

Read Bio
Faisal Mohamed Al-Emadi
Faisal Mohamed Al-Emadi

Executive Director of Programs

Silatech

Read Bio
Joshua A. Geltzer
Joshua A. Geltzer

Former Senior Director for Counterterrorism and Deputy Legal Advisor

National Security Council

Read Bio
Bobby Ghosh
Bobby Ghosh

Journalist and Commentator

Bloomberg

Read Bio
Karen J. Greenberg
Karen J. Greenberg

Director, Center on National Security

Fordham Law

Read Bio
Dr. Rohan Gunaratna
Dr. Rohan Gunaratna

Professor of Security Studies

Nanyang Technology University

Read Bio
Dr. Elisabeth Kendall
Dr. Elisabeth Kendall

Senior Research Fellow in Arabic & Islamic Studies

Pembroke College, University of Oxford

Read Bio
Gilles de Kerchove
Gilles de Kerchove

EU Counter-Terrorism Coordinator

European Union

Read Bio
Matthew Levitt
Matthew Levitt

Fromer-Wexler Fellow & Director, Reinhard Program on Counterterrorism & Intelligence

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

Read Bio
Francesca Mannocchi
Francesca Mannocchi

Journalist and Director

Read Bio
Magnus Ranstorp
Magnus Ranstorp

Research Director, Center for Asymmetric Threat Studies

Swedish Defence University

Read Bio
Nicholas J. Rasmussen
Nicholas J. Rasmussen

Senior Director for Counterterrorism Programs

McCain Institute for International Leadership

Read Bio
Colonel Sean Ryan, U.S. Army
Colonel Sean Ryan, U.S. Army

Spokesman

Combined Joint Task Force-Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR)

Read Bio
Linda Robinson
Linda Robinson

Senior International & Defense Researcher

RAND Corporation

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Eric Rosand
Eric Rosand

Director

The Prevention Project

Read Bio
Charlie Savage
Charlie Savage

Washington Correspondent

The New York Times

Read Bio
Irfan Saeed
Irfan Saeed

Director, Office of Countering Violent Extremism Bureau of Counterterrorism

& Countering Violent Extremism (CT)

Read Bio
David Scharia
David Scharia

Chief of Branch

Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directive (CTED)

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Lawrence Wright
Lawrence Wright

Staff Writer

The New Yorker

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Tarik Yousef
Tarik Yousef

Director

Brookings Doha Center

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Location

SHERATON GRAND DOHA
RESORT & CONVENTION HOTEL
Al Corniche Street, P.O. Box 6000, Doha, Qatar
For more information, please contact

events@thesoufancenter.org
©2018 Forum on Returning Foreign Fighters | Website by PeakXV

Chief Executives Org, DC

Jaipur Lit Festival, Jaipur, India

• 92.Directorate S: The CIA and America’s Secret Wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan:
  Peter Bergen, Shiv Shankar Menon and Steve Coll in conversation with Jon Lee Anderson Preferred Seatings for Delegates
  4:45 PM

• 97. Post American World:
  Jon Lee Anderson, Navtej Sarna, Peter Bergen and Steve Coll in conversation with Katty Kay Presented by Aga Khan Foundation

SPEAKERS

AHDAF SOUEIF
Alexandar-McCall-Smith
ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH
AMBI PARAMESWARAN

AMITABHA BAGCHI

AMITAVA KUMAR

ANDRÉ ACIMAN

ANDREW SEAN GREER

ANISH KAPOOR

ANITA NAIR
ANURADHA ROY

ARUNA ROY

ASHOK CHAKRADHAR

ASHWIN SANGHI
ÅSNE SEIERSTAD

CHITRA BANERJEE DIVAKARUNI

COLSON WHITEHEAD

DEVDUTT PATTANAIK
Germaine-Greer
GERMAINE GREER
Hari-Kunzru
HARI KUNZRU

JAMES CRABTREE

JAMES MALLINSON

JEREMY PAXMAN

JERRY PINTO

JON LEE ANDERSON

JUERGEN BOOS

KANISHK THAROOR

KIM A. WAGNER

KJ ALPHONS

MAKARAND R. PARANJAPE

MANISHA KOIRALA

MANORANJAN BYAPARI

MARC QUINN

MARKUS ZUSAK

MEGHNA GULZAR
MEGHNA PANT
MITRA PHUKAN

MOHAMMAD HASAN
MOHAN NARAYAN SAMANTH
MOHIT SATYANAND

MOIN MIR

MOLLY CRABAPPLE

MRIDULA RAMESH
N. KALYAN RAMAN

N.S. MADHAVAN

NAINA LAL KIDWAI
NAMITA BHANDARE
NAMITA DEVIDAYAL
NAMITA GOKHALE

NAMITA WAIKAR
NANDINI KRISHNAN

NARENDRA KOHLI

NASREEN MUNNI KABIR

NAVIN CHAWLA
NAVTEJ SARNA

NEELESH MISRA
NEERAJ GHEI

NIKESH SHUKLA
NIKHIL KUMAR

NOVIOLET BULAWAYO

OMAR EL AKKAD

OMAR ROBERT HAMILTON

ORNIT SHANI
PARO ANAND

PARVATI SHARMA
PATRICK FRENCH

PAUL MCVEIGH

PAVAN K. VARMA

PERUMAL MURUGAN

PETER BERGEN
PRADIP KRISHEN
PRAGYA TIWARI
PRASENJIT BASU

PRAVIN KUMAR

PRIYA SARUKKAI CHABRIA
PRIYA SETH

PRIYAMVADA NATARAJAN
PUSHPESH PANT

RACHEL JOHNSON
RAJDEEP SARDESAI

RAKHSHANDA JALIL

RAMESH PATANGE
RAMITA NAVAI

RANA DASGUPTA

RANA SAFVI
RAVI AGRAWAL
RAVI PUROHIT
RAVI SHANKAR ETTETH
RAVINDER SINGH

RENI EDDO-LODGE
RESHMA QURESHI

RHIANNON JENKINS TSANG

RIA SHARMA
RICHARD EVANS
RIMA HOOJA
RITWIJ SHANDILYA
ROBIN JEFFREY
ROBYN MONRO-MILLER
ROHINI CHOWDHURY

ROM WHITAKER

ROY STRONG

RUBY LAL

RUBY WAX

RUPERT EVERETT

RUTH PADEL

SADHNA SHANKER
SAKET SUMAN

SAM KILEY

SANCHAITA GAJAPATI
SANDEEP UNNITHAN

SANDIP ROY

SANJEEV SANYAL
SANJOY HAZARIKA
SANJOY K. ROY
SATYAJIT SARNA
SATYANAND NIRUPAM
SAURABH DWIVEDI

SEBASTIAN BARRY

SHABRI PRASAD SINGH
SHANTANU RAY CHAUDHURI

SHARMILA SEN
SHASHI THAROOR
SHEORAJ SINGH BECHAIN
SHIVSHANKAR MENON

SHOBHAA DE

SHUBHANGI SWARUP
SIDDHARTH DHANVANT SHANGHVI

SIDDHARTH SINGH
SIMAR SINGH

SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE

SOHAILA ABDULALI

SOMNATH BATABYAL
SR FARUQI
SREENIVASAN JAIN
STEVE COLL

STEWART GORDON

SUBODH GUPTA
SUCHITA MALIK

SUDESHNA CHATTERJEE
SUHASINI HAIDAR

SUNIL S. AMRITH

SUNITA TOOR
SVEN BECKERT
SY QURAISHI

TAM BAILLIE

TANIA JAMES
TANIA SINGH

TANWI NANDINI ISLAM

TARUN KHANNA

TAWFIQ-E-ELAHI CHOWDHURY
TCA RAGHAVAN
TIMMIE KUMAR

TISHANI DOSHI

TOBY WALSH

TOVA REICH

UDAY PRAKASH

ULRIKE ALMUT SANDIG

UPAMANYU CHATTERJEE
URVASHI BUTALIA
USHA UTHUP
VARUN SIVARAM
VEENA VENUGOPAL

VENKI RAMAKRISHNAN

VIDYA SHAH
VIKAS JHA

VIKRAM CHANDRA
VISHNU SOM
WILLIAM DALRYMPLE

WILLIAM SIEGHART


Copyright © 2008 Jaipur Literature Festival | All Rights Reserved | By Teamwork Arts
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About The Festival

Described as the ‘greatest literary show on Earth’, the ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival is a sumptuous feast of ideas.

The past decade has seen it transform into a global literary phenomenon having hosted nearly 2000 speakers and welcoming over a million book lovers from across India and the globe.

The Festival’s core values remain unchanged; to serve as a democratic, non-aligned platform offering free and fair access.

Every year, the Festival brings together a diverse mix of the world’s greatest writers, thinkers, humanitarians, politicians, business leaders, sports people and entertainers on one stage to champion the freedom to express and engage in thoughtful debate and dialogue.

Writers and Festival Directors Namita Gokhale and William Dalrymple invite speakers to take part in the five-day programme set against the backdrop of Rajasthan’s stunning cultural heritage and the Diggi Palace in the state capital Jaipur.
A Range of Voices from India And Abroad

Past speakers have ranged from Nobel Laureates J.M. Coetzee, Orhan Pamuk and Wole Soyinka, Man Booker Prize winners Ian McEwan, Margaret Atwood and Paul Beatty, Sahitya Akademi winners Girish Karnad, Gulzar, Javed Akhtar, M.T. Vasudevan Nair as well as the late Mahasweta Devi and U.R. Ananthamurthy along with literary superstars including Amish Tripathi, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and Vikram Seth. An annual event that goes beyond literature, the Festival has also hosted Amartya Sen, Amitabh Bachchan, the late A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama, Oprah Winfrey, Stephen Fry and Thomas Piketty.

The ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival is a flagship event of Teamwork Arts, which produces it along with over 25 highly acclaimed performing arts, visual arts and literary festivals across more than 40 cities globally.
Directors and Producer

Sanjoy K. Roy
Festival Producer

Sanjoy K. Roy, an entrepreneur of the arts, is the Managing Director of Teamwork Arts, which produces over 25 highly acclaimed performing arts, visual arts and literary festivals across 40 cities in countries such as Australia, Canada, Egypt, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Israel, Korea, Singapore, South Africa, Spain, UK and USA, and includes the world’s largest free literary gathering — the annual ZEE Jaipur Literature Festival. Roy has received the National Award for Excellence and Best Director for the film Shahjahanabad: The Twilight Years. He is a founder trustee of Salaam Baalak Trust (SBT) working to provide support services for street and working children in the inner city of Delhi where over 55,000 children have benefitted from education, training and residential services. In 2011 the White House presented SBT the US President’s Committee of Arts and Humanities Award for an International Organisation.

Copyright © 2008 Jaipur Literature Festival | All Rights Reserved | By Teamwork Arts

The 1988 meeting that shaped the world we live in, CNN.com

The 1988 meeting that shaped the world we live in
Posted: Sep 10, 2018 7:47 AM EDT
Updated: Sep 10, 2018 12:17 PM EDT
By Peter Bergen, CNN National Security Analyst and David Sterman

Editor’s note: Peter Bergen is CNN’s national security analyst, a vice president at New America and a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He is the author of “United States of Jihad: Investigating America’s Homegrown Terrorists.” David Sterman is a policy analyst at New America’s International Security Program.

(CNN) — In August 1988, nine men met in Osama Bin Laden’s house in Peshawar, Pakistan, to start a group that would end up playing a dramatic role in shaping the United States of the early 21st century. They called the group al-Qaeda, which means “the base” in Arabic.

As a result of its terrorist activities, the US would see the most lethal attack ever on its homeland, would embark on a war that has already lasted for 17 years, would spend an estimated $2.8 trillion to protect itself from attack, according to a recent Stimson Center report, and would see its politics changed in fundamental ways that endure today.

In the wake of that founding meeting, al Qaeda records show, the “work of al-Qaeda commenced on September 10, 1988,” 30 years ago Monday.

Twenty years ago last month, al-Qaeda made its intent to wage global war on the United States unmistakable when it bombed the American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania killing 224 people.

Seventeen years ago on Tuesday, al-Qaeda killed 2,977 people in the United States.

Against the backdrop of this history of violence, what is the threat to the United States today from jihadist terrorists?

In a new report, New America finds that since the 9/11 attacks, the jihadist threat has changed substantially.

Avoiding further attacks

Al-Qaeda has not successfully directed a deadly attack inside the United States since that day 17 years ago. Nor has any other jihadist foreign terrorist organization.

That represents a major success for the United States’ counterterrorism effort since 9/11. Few analysts in the months and years after the attacks would have predicted that the United States would be so successful in avoiding attacks.

Thanks to the hard work of law enforcement and intelligence agencies and the military, as well as the public’s greater awareness, the threat to the homeland today is far more limited than it was on 9/11. This has certainly come at a price — trillions in spending, unprecedented security measures at airports and public venues, and roiling public debate over immigration and law enforcement.

Yet, the United States still faces a new and different jihadist threat: individuals motivated by jihadist ideology, but with no operational direction from a foreign terrorist organization. Such individuals have carried out 13 lethal attacks and killed 104 people in the United States since the 9/11 attacks, according to research by New America.

The rise of al-Qaeda’s breakaway faction, ISIS, took this threat to a new level. Three-quarters of the people killed by jihadist extremists in the United States since 9/11 have been killed since 2014, the year ISIS declared its caliphate. Eight of the 13 lethal attacks in the US since 9/11 occurred in that time period, and seven were motivated in part by ISIS’ propaganda. In 2015, an unprecedented 80 Americans were accused of jihadist-terrorism-related crimes, almost all inspired in some way by ISIS, according to New America’s research.

Yet even at its height of power in Iraq and Syria, ISIS did not direct a lethal attack inside the United States.

With the territorial collapse of ISIS in Syria and Iraq, the threat to the United States has waned further. The number of jihadist terrorism cases involving Americans has declined every year since its peak of the 80 cases in 2015. As of the end of August, only eight Americans had been charged with jihadist-terrorism-related crimes in 2018.

Foreign fighters

Despite much fear over the threat posed by “foreign fighters” — those Westerners who joined ISIS and other militant groups abroad — few Americans succeeded in joining ISIS. Fewer still returned. There is only one known case of an American who fought in Syria or Iraq plotting violence after returning to the United States, and no returnee has actually conducted an attack.

However, Americans should not expect the threat to disappear with the collapse of the territorial caliphate. This lesson was illustrated when Sayfullo Saipov, a 29-year-old US permanent resident from Uzbekistan, killed eight people in a truck attack on a Manhattan bike path in October 2017, the same month ISIS’ self-proclaimed capital of Raqqa was liberated by the American-backed Syrian Democratic Forces.

Indeed, the jihadist terrorism challenge the United States faces may not be entirely propelled by jihadist ideology. Many of the jihadist attackers had personal issues including histories of nonpolitical violence and mental health problems, and some appear to have been influenced by multiple ideologies and not just jihadism.

The United States also faces the threat of public violence motivated by ideologies other than jihadism including far-right violence, which has killed 73 people since 9/11.

What to do — and what not to do

So what should the United States do?

One thing it should not do is embrace the immigration-centric counterterrorism approach promoted by the Trump administration and encapsulated by the travel ban, which the President should end. The threat today is “homegrown” and not the result of foreign infiltration.

Nineteen foreign hijackers who entered the United States on non-immigrant visas, carried out the 9/11 attacks. That image of the threat has colored threat perceptions since. Yet since 9/11 just under half of 449 jihadist extremists charged in the US were born citizens and 84% are citizens or legal permanent residents. About three in 10 are converts to Islam.

The travel ban would not have prevented a single deadly attack since 9/11 nor would it have prevented the 9/11 attacks.

What the United States should do is take the respite provided by ISIS’ territorial collapse in Syria and Iraq to reassess and answer fundamental questions regarding its counterterrorism approach.

The Trump administration has not publicly released a strategy for countering terrorism, and the United States continues to wage war based on a now 17-year-old Authorization for the Use of Military Force (AUMF), whose relevance to ISIS, a group that split off from al-Qaeda and many of whose members were not born or were young children at the time of the 9/11 attacks, is questionable. The Trump administration should release a counterterrorism strategy, and Congress should pass an updated authorization for the use of military force.

The Trump administration has reportedly made substantial changes to policy regarding counterterrorism strikes, devolving authority to commanders and removing the requirement that targets pose an “imminent threat” to Americans. The administration should release its new guidance regarding strikes, as the Obama administration eventually did by releasing its Presidential Policy Guidance on counterterrorism strikes.

The United States has spent $2.8 trillion on counterterrorism efforts, including for the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, since 9/11 — almost 15% of the government’s discretionary spending over the same period — and has no unified accounting of its expenditures, as documented by the Stimson Center. The US should conduct an assessment and audit of the amount of money spent on counterterrorism efforts since the 9/11 attacks.

Addressing these fundamental issues will be essential as — despite its territorial losses — ISIS and even al-Qaeda demonstrate resiliency, in large part buoyed by persistent instability in the Middle East and North Africa.

ISIS managed to direct five attacks in Europe since 2014, killing more people in those five attacks than jihadists have killed in the US since 9/11.

Aviation remains a key target. ISIS killed 224 people when it snuck a bomb aboard a flight from Egypt to Russia in October 2015.

The increasing use of drones by terrorist groups and the effective adoption of vehicular ramming by a variety of groups point to the innovative potential of America’s terrorist adversaries.

More than a quarter of Americans are too young to remember the 9/11 attacks and one in five were not even born at the time, as the Washington Post reported, but the attacks continue to define much of how the US military, intelligence community and law enforcement do business. And they continue to influence American politics in fundamental ways.

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IDEX conf, Abu Dhabi, UAE