Experts Will Discuss Current Status of Al-Qaeda in Public Program at the 9/11 Memorial Museum

On Tuesday, November 19, at 7 p.m., the 9/11 Memorial & Museum will host the first public program to complement the newly opened special exhibition Revealed: The Hunt for Bin Laden.

The program will feature Peter Bergen, Dr. Bruce Hoffman, Mary E. Galligan, and Dr. Mark Stout, four content advisors to the exhibition who worked closely with our curatorial and exhibitions staff for the past several years, generously sharing their time, insights, and expertise.

During this program, our advisors will examine the current status of al-Qaeda, within the context of the wider jihadist movement.  

Peter Bergen is a journalist, documentary producer, vice president for global studies and fellows at New America, CNN national security analyst, professor of practice at Arizona State University where he codirects the Center on the Future of War, and the author or editor of seven books, three of which were New York Times bestsellers and four of which were named among the best nonfiction books of the year by The Washington Post. Documentaries based on his books have been nominated for two Emmys and won the Emmy for best documentary.

Bergen produced the first television interview with Osama bin Laden in 1997. The interview, which aired on CNN, marked the first time that bin Laden declared war against the United States to a Western audience.

Bruce Hoffman is Shelby Cullom and Kathryn W. Davis senior fellow for counterterrorism and homeland security at the Council on Foreign Relations and has been studying terrorism and insurgency for four decades. He is a tenured professor in Georgetown University’s Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service where until recently he was the director of both the Center for Security Studies and of the Security Studies program. In addition, Hoffman is a visiting professor of terrorism studies at St Andrews University, Scotland. He previously held the corporate chair in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency at the RAND Corporation and was also director of RAND’s office in Washington, D.C., as well as vice president for external affairs.

Appointed by the U.S. Congress to serve as a commissioner on the Independent Commission to Review the FBI’s Post-9/11 Response to Terrorism and Radicalization, Hoffman was a lead author of the commission’s final report. He was scholar-in-residence for counterterrorism at the Central Intelligence Agency (2004 and 2006); an adviser on counterterrorism to the Office of National Security Affairs, Coalition Provisional Authority, Baghdad, Iraq (2004); and an adviser on counterinsurgency to the Strategy, Plans, and Analysis office at Multi-National Forces-Iraq Headquarters, Baghdad (2004–2005).

Mary E. Galligan’s service at the FBI spanned 25 years. Ms. Galligan was one of the on-scene commanders in Yemen to investigate the USS Cole attack, and she traveled to Tanzania in 1998 to work on the U.S. Embassy bombing case.

After the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, she supervised PENTTBOM, the FBI’s investigation of the attacks. Shortly after, she reported to FBI Headquarters and oversaw the entire investigation and a team of 75 people.

In July 2010, then-Director Robert S. Mueller III named Galligan the first female special agent in charge (SAC) of Cyber/Special Operations for the FBI’s New York Division. Ms. Galligan retired from the Bureau in May 2013 and joined Deloitte & Touche LLP as managing director of cyber-risk services.

Dr. Mark Stout is a senior lecturer at Johns Hopkins University’s Krieger School of Arts & Sciences Advanced Academic Programs in Washington, where he directs the master of arts program in global security studies. Before coming to Johns Hopkins, he spent 13 years in the intelligence community as an analyst and also worked for six years at the Institute for Defense Analyses doing research for the Defense Department. He was the lead author of The Terrorist Perspectives Project: Strategic and Operational Views of Al Qaida and Associated Movements published in 2008 by the Naval Institute Press. Stout also worked for three years as the historian at the International Spy Museum in Washington.

Reserve tickets to this program and learn more about the fall 2019 public program season at the 9/11 Memorial Museum.

By 9/11 Memorial Staff