Relationships and Rivalries: Assessing Al-Qaeda’s Affiliate Network

Tim Pippard

Director of Defense, Security and Risk Consulting, IHS

Mr. Pippard is Director of Defense, Security and Risk Consulting at IHS, based in Washington, DC. In this capacity, he provides defence and intelligence agencies with security, risk and terrorism analysis, and produces security assessments designed to support the operations of private sector clients. Prior to joining the IHS consulting team, Mr. Pippard served as Section Head of Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Centre, the oldest and most established of nine intelligence centres operated by Jane’s Information Group (acquired by IHS in 2007).

Mr. Pippard specializes in understanding the forces and dynamics shaping the global jihadist threat, and has 10 years of experience examining Al-Qaeda’s senior leadership, assessing the alliances and rivalries between militant groups active in North and East Africa, the Gulf States, South and Southeast Asia, understanding recruitment and radicalization, and analyzing the threat of radiological and nuclear terrorism and the technologies, mechanisms, policies and procedures to counter and mitigate that threat.

Mr. Pippard is a regular speaker at major international defense and security conferences, including:

• 'Future Security Environments – Impacts on the Oil and Gas Industry’, 11th Hewlett-Packard Executive Energy Conference, Istanbul, June 21, 2011
• ‘Cyber Terrorism – Threats, Challenges and Responses’, 3rd Annual Microsoft Public Safety Symposium (PSS), Seattle, WA, March 24, 2011
• ‘Jihad 2010: trends and drivers’, 2nd Annual Microsoft Public Safety Symposium (PSS), Redmond, WA, January 26, 2010

Mr Pippard concurrently serves as Assistant Editor of Perspectives on Terrorism (a journal of the Terrorism Research Initiative). He is also the co-editor of Human and Environmental Security: An Agenda for Change (Earthscan September 2005), which he launched at the UN General Assembly in New York in 2005 and served as co-editor of the Peacekeeping Digest in International Peacekeeping (a Taylor and Francis journal) in 2006.

Mr. Pippard holds an MA in International Peace and Security from King's College, University of London, and a BA (Hons) in Comparative American Studies from the University of Warwick.

Richard Weitz

Senior Associate, IHS Defense, Security and Risk Consulting

Dr. Weitz is a Senior Associate with IHS Defense, Security and Risk Consulting and Director of the Center for Political-Military Analysis at Hudson Institute in Washington, DC. His current research includes regional security developments relating to Europe, Central and East Asia as well as U.S. foreign, defense, and homeland security policies. Dr. Weitz is also a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), where he contributes to various defense projects.

Before joining Hudson in 2003, Dr. Weitz worked for the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Defense Science Board, DFI International, Inc., Center for Strategic Studies, Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, and the U.S. Department of Defense. Dr. Weitz is a graduate of Harvard College (B.A. with Highest Honors in Government), the London School of Economics (M.Sc. in International Relations), Oxford University (M.Phil. in Politics), and Harvard University (Ph.D. in Political Science), where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He is proficient in Russian, French, and German.

Urmila Venugopalan

Consultant, South Asia

Urmila Venugopalan has worked for the past seven years as an editor and analyst in the field of South Asian affairs. A substantial proportion of this time was spent as the Asia Editor of Jane's Intelligence Review, focusing on political, defence, and security trends within India, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Currently, as an independent analyst, Urmila continues to focus on the region through consultancy projects for a number of public and private organizations, ranging from the US Department of Defense to global risk management businesses. Urmila has also published several articles in Foreign Policy magazine and The Huffington Post, among other publications. Urmila was born and raised in Qatar before completing a undergraduate degree at McGill University in Canada, and then a master’s degree at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Over the past decade, she has lived and worked in Bombay, New Delhi, Doha, Dubai, London, and recently relocated to Washington DC.