Bennett Clifford

Bennett Clifford studies violent extremist movements and organizations in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Balkans, and supporters of extremist groups in the United States. A graduate of Wake Forest University, Bennett previously held positions at a number of research organizations in the country of Georgia, where he researched Russian and Georgian-speaking militant Islamists. He is the co-author of the Program on Extremism report "The Travelers: American Jihadists in Syria and Iraq," the most comprehensive, publicly available accounting of American jihadist foreign fighters in the Syrian and Iraqi conflicts to date. His research has been published in a number of academic and popular publications, including the Atlantic, Lawfare, and the CTC Sentinel. Bennett conducts research in English, Georgian, Russian, and Spanish.

Publications

• "Sixteen-Year-Old American Islamic State Fighter Reportedly Captured in Syria," Lawfare, January 9, 2019
• "United States v. Aws Mohammed Younis al-Jayab: A Case Study on Transnational Prosecutions of Jihadi Foreign Fighters," CTC Sentinel 11(11), December 2018
• "Rethinking 'Prison Radicalization': Lessons from the U.S. Federal Correctional System," International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT)- the Hague, November 16, 2018
• "Radicalization In Custody: Towards Data-Driven Terrorism Prevention in the United States Federal Correctional System," Program on Extremism Policy Paper, November 2018
• "The Cup and the Caliphate: Russia’s Counterterrorism Operations Before Major Sporting Events and the Global Jihadist Movement," Lawfare, June 22, 2018.
• "Trucks, Knives, Bombs, Whatever: Exploring Pro-Islamic State Instructional Material on Telegram," CTC Sentinel 11 (5), May 2018.
• "United States" in Counterterrorism Yearbook 2018, Australian Strategic Policy Institute: Canberra, Australia. 
• "A New American Leader Rises in ISIS," The Atlantic, January 13, 2017.
• "Georgian foreign fighter deaths in Syria and Iraq: what can they tell us about foreign fighter mobilization and recruitment?"  Caucasus Survey 6 (1), November 2017.
• "Radicalization and the Uzbek Diaspora in the Wake of the NYC Attacks," Program on Extremism Occasional Paper, November 2017
• "First He Became an American—Then He Joined ISIS," The Atlantic, May 25, 2017