Richard Barrett (counter-terrorism expert)

Richard Barrett is a former British diplomat and intelligence officer who heads the Al-Qaida/Taliban Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team of the United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

1267 Security Council Committee. Mr. Barrett is a recognized global expert on terrorism who frequently appears as a panelist in related conferences and whose commentary is regularly featured in the press.

Mr. Barrett was born in Taplow, U.K.

Taplow

Taplow is a village and civil parish within South Bucks district in Buckinghamshire, England. It sits on the east bank of the River Thames facing Maidenhead on the opposite bank. Taplow railway station is situated near the A4 south of the village....

and was educated at Ampleforth College

Ampleforth College

Ampleforth College in North Yorkshire, England, is the largest Roman Catholic co-educational boarding independent school in the United Kingdom. It opened in 1802, as a boys' school, and is run by the Benedictine monks and lay staff of Ampleforth Abbey...

in Yorkshire

Yorkshire

Yorkshire is a historic county of northern England and the largest in the United Kingdom. Because of its great size in comparison to other English counties, functions have been increasingly undertaken over time by its subdivisions, which have also been subject to periodic reform...

. In 1973, he was awarded a Master of Arts in Modern History and Italian Literature from University College, Oxford

University College, Oxford

.University College , is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England. As of 2009 the college had an estimated financial endowment of £110m...

. Mr. Barrett was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire

Order of the British Empire

The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...

(OBE) in 1992.

Professional Life

Richard Barrett has been the Coordinator of the New York-based United Nations 1267 Monitoring Team since his appointment in 2004. The Team provides analytical support regarding evolving threats posed by Al-Qaida and the Taliban in the context of international counter-terrorism initiatives, and monitors the effectiveness of UN Security Council’s implementation of targeted sanctions against related individuals and entities. Mr. Barrett is also a member of the United Nations Counter Terrorism Implementation Task Force (CTITF), which was established in 2005 to promote the UN Global Counter Terrorism Strategy adopted by the General Assembly

United Nations General Assembly

For two articles dealing with membership in the General Assembly, see:* General Assembly members* General Assembly observersThe United Nations General Assembly is one of the five principal organs of the United Nations and the only one in which all member nations have equal representation...

in 2006. He chairs the CTITF Working Group on Terrorist use of the Internet which seeks to identify the threat posed by a number of Internet-based terrorist activities, and explores strategies for use by the international community to address these concerns..

Mr. Barrett has been designated as one of the Global Experts of the Alliance of Civilizations

Alliance of Civilizations

The Alliance of Civilizations is an initiative proposed by the Prime Minister of the Government of Spain, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, at the 59th General Assembly of the United Nations in 2005. It was co-sponsored by the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan...

, a group of recognized expert commentators available to the media to provide objective analysis on a range of pressing international issues. He has spoken frequently on television and radio, and his interviews have been featured on Amanpour (CNN) and Charlie Rose (PBS). He is the author of several articles and commentaries including op-eds for The Guardian, The New York Times, The Financial Times and The International Herald Tribune.
Before being appointed Coordinator of the 1267 Monitoring Team, Mr. Barrett spent his career in government service to the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. He has held positions in the British Security Service (MI5) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Foreign and Commonwealth Office

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office, commonly called the Foreign Office or the FCO is a British government department responsible for promoting the interests of the United Kingdom overseas, created in 1968 by merging the Foreign Office and the Commonwealth Office.The head of the FCO is the...

. Mr. Barrett also served as Director of Global Counter Terrorism Operations for the British Secret Intelligence Service

Secret Intelligence Service

The Secret Intelligence Service is responsible for supplying the British Government with foreign intelligence. Alongside the internal Security Service , the Government Communications Headquarters and the Defence Intelligence , it operates under the formal direction of the Joint Intelligence...

(SIS) both before and after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

He has served abroad in Canada, Jordan, Turkey and the United States.

Upon his retirement from government service in 2004, Mr. Barrett was appointed to his current position by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan

Kofi Annan

Kofi Atta Annan is a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the UN from 1 January 1997 to 31 December 2006...

, and has since been reappointed three times by the United Nations Secretaries-General.

Mr. Barrett sits on the boards of the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism in The Hague; the Transnational Crisis Project; the Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation

Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation

The Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation is an independent, nonpartisan, not-for-profit research and policy institute based out of offices in New York, Washington, D.C., and Brussels...

; and, The Center for the Study of United Nations Systems and the Global Legal Order (SUNSGLOW).

Selected Publications

Richard Barrett. "Seven Years After 9/11, The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (September 2008).
Richard Barrett and Laila Bokhari. "De-radicalisation and rehabilitation programmes targeting militant jihadists: An overview." Chapter 10 in Leaving Terrorism Behind, Jorgo and Horgan, eds. (Routledge, 2008).
Hamed El-Said and Richard Barrett. "Radicalisation and Extremism that Lead to Violent Extremism in the Arab World" in Part III of Globalisation, Democratisation and Radicalisation in the Arab World, El-Said and Harrington, eds. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).
Richard Barrett. "Al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Threatened," Policy Watch 1409 for the Washington Center for Near East Policy (6 October 2008).
Richard Barrett, et. al. "The Al-Qaeda-Taliban Nexus." Expert Roundup, Council on Foreign Relations (25 November 2009).
Richard Barrett. "The broader impact of terrorism on financial stability." Seminar on Current Developments in Monetary and Financial Law Washington, D.C., International Monetary Fund (26 October 2006).
Richard Barrett. "The Role of the United Nations in Defeating Al-Qa'ida and Associated Groups," CTC Sentinel 2, no. 4 (April 2009).

Professional Life

Selected Publications

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