Conference Announcement

The Foreign Fighter Problem:

Recent Trends and Case Studies
Reserve Officers Association Building
One Constitution Avenue, NE - Washington, DC 20045
27-28 September 2010

The entire conference will be webcast.

On the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines have
confronted third-party national combatants. Known as “foreign fighters,” these individuals
have gained deadly skills and connections that can be exported or exploited to devastating
effect in other locations. Over the past two decades, the foreign fighters phenomenon has
grown after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 to the ethnically cleansed fields of the
Balkans to Chechnya and beyond. But this is not a new problem. This conference builds
upon the findings of the FPRI’s first foreign fighters conference from the summer of 2009
and brings together recognized academic and analytical expertise in order examine recent
trends in the foreign fighter phenomenon and also explore the particular cases of Somalia,
the Maghreb, Yemen, and Afghanistan/Pakistan.

Day 1 27 Sept. 2010

Conference Registration 8:00AM
Conference Opening Remarks 8:45AM

Keynote Address 9:00AM

Speaker: To Be Announced

Break 9:45AM

Panel 1: Recent Trends in Foreign Fighter Source Countries and 10:00AM

Transit Networks
Panelists: Mohammed Hafez, Naval Postgraduate School (invited)
Stephanie Kaplan, MIT
Marc Sageman, FPRI
Clinton Watts, Innovative Analytics and Training

Rapporteur
& Moderator: Barak Mendelsohn, FPRI/Haverford College

Lunch 12:00PM
Panel 2: Somalia Case Study 1:15PM
Paper: AMB (ret.) David Shinn, George Washington University

Panelists: Ted Dagne, Congressional Research Service

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies
Ken Menkhaus, Davidson College
Moderator: Michael Noonan, FPRI

Break 3:00PM

Panel 3: Maghreb Case Study 3:15PM

Paper: J. Peter Pham, National Committee on American Foreign
Policy/James Madison University

Panelists: Lianne Kennedy Boudali, RAND Corporation

John Entelis, Fordham University
Audra K. Grant, RAND Corporation
Moderator: Samuel Helfont, FPRI/Princeton University

Day 2 28 Sept. 2010

Conference Registration 8:00AM

Panel 4: Yemen Case Study 8:45AM

Paper: Christopher Boucek, Carnegie Endowment for Int’l Peace

Panelists: Brian O’Neill, Waq al-Waq blog

Barak Salmoni, Washington Institute for Near East Policy
Jeremy Sharp, Congressional Research Service
Moderator: Barak Mendelsohn, FPRI/Haverford College

Break 10:30AM

Panel 5: Afghanistan & Pakistan Case Study 10:45AM

Paper: Brian Glyn Williams, Univ. of Massachusetts-Dartmouth

Panelists: Sameer Lalwani, New America Foundation/MIT

Bruce Riedel, Brookings Institution
Stephen Tankel, Carnegie Endowment for Int’l Peace
Moderator: Michael Horowitz, FPRI/University of Pennsylvania

Concluding Remarks 12:30PM

For the 2009 Foreign Fighters Conference monograph, visit:

http://www.fpri.org/pubs/2010/ForeignFightersSovereigntyCounterTerrorism.pdf
 Registration Form
September 27 – 28, 2010
The Foreign Fighter Problem: Recent Trends and Case Studies

Attendance at the Program and Lunch is free for FPRI & ROA Members,
and $50 for Non-Members

Registration for the webcast is free.

To register for the webcast, email lux@fpri.org for instructions.

LIMITED SEATING AVAILABLE

_____________ Full conference ____________ Day 1 only ______________ Day 2 only

Number attending:
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Please return this form to:

FPRI, 1528 Walnut Street, Suite 610, Philadelphia, PA 19102
RSVP 215 732 3774, ext 303 or lux@fpri.org