jihadica

Jihadica is a clearinghouse for materials related to militant, transnational Sunni Islamism, commonly known as Jihadism. At the moment, much of this material is diffuse, known only to a few specialists, and inaccessible to the public and policymakers unless they pay a fee. Jihadica provides this material for free and keeps a daily record of its dissemination that can be easily searched and studied. These records are accompanied by the expert commentary of people who have the requisite language training to understand the primary source material and advanced degrees in relevant fields.

The Team

William McCants, the founder and co-editor of Jihadica, is a research analyst at the Center for Strategic Studies at CNA and adjunct faculty at Johns Hopkins University.  He has served as Senior Adviser for Countering Violent Extremism at the U.S. Department of State, program manager of the Minerva Initiative at the Department of Defense, and fellow at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center.Will has a PhD from Princeton University and is the editor of the Militant Ideology Atlas. Far afield from his publications and translations related to jihadism, Will his written a book on early Islamic culture myths, Founding Gods, Inventing Nations.

Thomas Hegghammer is a fellow at Harvard Kennedy School and a senior research fellow at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI). He has a PhD from Sciences-Po in Paris and is the author of a forthcoming book entitled Jihad in Saudi Arabia.

Vahid Brown is a former Harmony Fellow at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, a senior instructor for the CTC’s FBI program, and now pursuing a PhD in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. He is the author of Cracks in the Foundation: Leadership Schisms in al-Qa’ida, 1989-2006. His research focuses on the history of transnational Islamist militancy, particularly in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Brynjar Lia is the director of terrorism research at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI). He holds a PhD from the University of Oslo. He is the author of several books on terrorism and Islamism, including Architect of Global Jihad: The Life of Al-Qaida Strategist Abu Mus`ab al-Suri.

Joas Wagemakers is a lecturer at the Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies of Radboud University Nijmegen, the Netherlands, and a research fellow at the Netherlands Institute of International Affairs Clingendael in the Hague. He has a PhD in Islam & Arabic and has published widely on Islamism, Salafism, particularly the ideological side of these phenomena. He also co-edits ZemZem, a Dutch-language journal on the Middle East, North Africa and Islam.

Alumni

Hanna Rogan is a research fellow at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI) and a PhD candidate at the University of Oslo. She wrote a Master’s thesis on al-Qaida’s media strategy and is currently working on jihadism in North Africa.

Scott Sanford is a graduate student at George Washington University, Washington D.C.  His research focus is militant movements in the Levant.

Anne Stenersen is a research fellow at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI) and a PhD candidate at the University of Oslo. She is the author of the book Al-Qaida’s Quest for Weapons of Mass Destruction. Her current research focuses on the history of the Arabs in Afghanistan and Pakistan after 9/11.

Truls Tønnessen is also a research fellow at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment and a PhD candidate in History at the University of Oslo. His MA degree focused on Islamism in Egypt, while his doctoral research centers on the Iraqi insurgency.

All contributors are writing in a private capacity; the views expressed here do not represent those of their employers, their affiliate institutions, or the governments of the countries in which they live.