START Headquarters
On Monday, July 15 at 3:00pm, Dr. Ken Menkhaus will give a lecture titled "Jihadi intelligence: The case of Al Shabaab’s Amniyat network” at START Headquarters. This event is free and open to the public, but RSVPs are appreciated. If you are not a START affiliate, please email Eva Coll (escoll@umd.edu) if you're interested in attending for more information.
Intelligence gathering and analysis is as important to terrorist organizations as is it is to states, and is just as prone to errors, though not always for the same reasons. In this talk, Professor Ken Menkhaus shares what we know about the roles and capacity of the Amniyat network of Al Shabaab in Somalia, and assesses the likely impact that network may have in the future.
Dr. Ken Menkhaus is Professor and Chair of the Political Science department at Davidson College. He received his Ph.D. in International Studies in 1989 from the University of South Carolina, where he was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship for dissertation research on southern Somalia. His subsequent work has focused on development, conflict analysis, humanitarian response, peace operations, peacebuilding, state-building, and violent extremism, involving both academic research and policy work. He is author or co-author of over one hundred reports, articles, book chapters, and monographs, including “Al-Shabaab and Social Media: A Double-Edged Sword” (2014), “Terrorism, Security, and the State” (2014), and “Non-State Security Providers and Political Formation in Somalia” (2016).