Rohan Gunaratna

Rohan Gunaratna

Rohan Gunaratna is an international terrorism expert. He is the head of the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. By its size, ICPVTR is one of the largest counter terrorism research and training centres in the world.

Career

A Member of the Steering Committee of George Washington University's Homeland Security Policy Institute, Gunaratna is also Senior Fellow both at Fletcher School for Law and Diplomacy's Jebsen Centre for Counter Terrorism Studies and the Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism, Oklahoma. A former Senior Fellow at the United States Military Academy's Combating Terrorism Centre at West Point, he holds a masters in international peace studies from Notre Dame, US, where he was Hesburgh Scholar and a doctorate in international relations from St Andrews, Scotland, where he was British Chevening Scholar.

Invited to testify before the 9-11 Commission on the structure of al Qaeda, Gunaratna led the specialist team that built the UN Database on al Qaeda, Taliban and their Entities. He debriefed detainees in the U.S., Asia, Middle East, including high value al Qaeda detainees in Iraq. He served as trainer for law enforcement, the intelligence community, and the military. He served as counter terrorism instructor for GIGN, CTSO, D88, US NAVY SEALS, Swiss Federal Police, NYPD, and the Australian Federal Police. He conducted field research in conflict zones including in Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Kashmir, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, and Colombia.

Author and editor of 12 books including “Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror” (Columbia University Press), an international bestseller, Gunaratna is also the lead author of Jane’s Counter Terrorism, a handbook for counter terrorism practitioners. His latest book with Michael Chandler, former Chairman of the UN Monitoring Group into the Mobility, Weapons and Finance is "Countering Terrorism: Can We Meet the Threat of Global Violence?” He also serves on the editorial boards of "Studies in Conflict and Terrorism" and "Terrorism and Political Violence," the leading academic journals in the field, and on the advisory council of “Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism.”

A litigation consultant to the U.S. Department of Justice, Gunaratna was United States expert in the Jose Padilla trial.

Controversy

Gunaratna has been accused of being overly apocalyptic in his visions on Al Qaeda and lacking in his academic credentials. According to an article in the Australian newspaper The Age, he simply happened to fill out the need for information on Al Qaeda when the demand for explanations and background exploded in 2001, without having any special expertise on this area. [http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/07/20/1058545648013.html Analyse this. The Age, July 20 2003] ] His book "Inside Al Qaeda" does hold a number of unsupported claims and stipulated deductive arguments, such as this, where the fact that former police and military personnel served in Al Qaeda is used to support the claim of Al Qaeda infiltrating governments:

"...Al Qaeda and Islamist terrorist groups have infiltrated both Middle Eastern and other governments. For instance, several former Middle Eastern [...] police officers and military personnel as well as several former European military and at least one US military personnel have served in the ranks of Al Qaeda." (p. 76)

Works

*"War and Peace in Sri Lanka : With a Post-Accord Report From Jaffna" []
*"SRI LANKA - A LOST REVOLUTION? The Inside Story of the JVP" []
*"Indian intervention in Sri Lanka : The role of India's intelligence agencies" []

References

External links

* [http://www.pvtr.org/coreprojects_people.htm International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research]
*Bradley Hope, [http://www.nysun.com/article/42601?page_no=2 How Commissioner Kelly Reads His Way To Vigilance on Crime] , New York Sun October 2006.
*Daniel Hoare, [http://www.abc.net.au/worldtoday/content/2005/s1469369.htm Gareth Evans downplays terrorist risk in Australia]


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