The anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States and the discovery of an alleged terrorist plot in New York City have prompted a flurry of media appearances for an NDSU faculty member.
Jarret Brachman, associate research fellow with the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute, was credited with publishing the first in-captivity photos of al-Qaida detainee, Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, the architect of the Sept. 11 attacks. Photos of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad had not been released by the government since his 2003 capture, but Brachman and a colleague found the leaked photos on pro al-Qaida Web sites and published them on the Internet. More than 250 newspapers and media outlets worldwide covered the story.
In addition, Foreign Policy.com featured his article, titled “The Next Osama,” as their cover story on their Sept. 11 edition. Slate Magazine online also used the article as their cover story the next day. Brachman’s piece detailed the role of al-Qaida’s next generation of leadership. He conducted follow-on interviews with Associated Press television, which broadcast internationally. Foreign Policy and Slate are published by the Slate Group, a division of the Washington Post, Newsweek Interactive LLC, in Washington, D.C., and is an award-winning magazine of global politics, economics and ideas.
On Sept. 15-16, Brachman was an invited speaker at a conference on the future of irregular warfare held at the Naval War College. His talk centered on future military strategies of the al-Qaida organization in Iraq, Afghanistan and toward the West. More than 100 senior military officials and leading thinkers were in attendance.
The case of alleged al-Qaida plotter, Najibullah Zazi, brought more media attention to Brachman. His extended quote on the case featured in the New York Times led to appearances on “Studio B” with Shephard Smith on Fox News, CBS Evening News, Minnesota Public Radio and the Michael Smerconish and Scott Hennen radio shows.
On Sept. 28, Brachman provided an in-depth afternoon training seminar to more than 150 members of the Minnesota Infragard chapter, a public-private partnership on security issues coordinated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He also had the chance to meet with the former president of Pakistan, Pervez Musharraf, during Musharraf’s visit to Brachman’s alma mater, Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D., on Oct. 2.
Brachman, a former fellow with the CIA and former director of research at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center, is establishing a transportation security and counterterrorism center in the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute at NDSU.