William Braniff
William Braniff is the Executive Director of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START). He previously served as the director of practitioner education at West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center (CTC) and an instructor in the Department of Social Sciences. Braniff is a graduate of the United States Military Academy. Following his Company Command as an Armor Officer in the U.S. Army, Braniff attended the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) where he received a master’s degree in international relations. Upon graduation, Braniff served as a foreign affairs specialist for the National Nuclear Security Agency. He lectures frequently for counterterrorism audiences and programs including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Joint Special Operations University, National Defense University. Braniff has also taken a keen interest in the field of countering violent extremism (CVE). He has consulted with the Department of Justice, the FBI and the National Security Staff, playing a key role in an inter-agency working group dedicated to the topic and speaking at the White House Summit on Countering Violent Extremism in February 2015. His research focuses on domestic and international terrorism, counterterrorism and countering violent extremism.
Introduction On 10 June, twelve French and two Dutch orphans of Islamic State fighters were repatriated from Syria to France. This followed the earlier repatriation of five orphans from Syria to France in mid-March of this year; a three year old girl whose mother was sentenced to life imprisonment in Iraq was also returned […]
In the past several years, the United States has witnessed a concerning rise in far-right extremism and terrorist violence. Attackers in Oak Creek, Charleston, and Pittsburgh emerged from an increasingly emboldened radical right, which has grown in size and ambition in recent years. The Atomwaffen Division—a small, neo-Nazi terrorist organisation—is part of this movement. This […]
On the night of 26 November 2008, ten Kalashnikov-wielding terrorists attacked Mumbai. They stuck simultaneously at five locations, shooting dead 140 Indians and 25 foreign tourists. American and British passport-holders were executed in two luxury hotel complexes.[1] At a Jewish cultural centre, Israeli nationals were tortured before being killed. A fourth location, a café frequented […]