Al-Qaeda and the Media: The Virtual Network Behind the Message

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Al-Qaeda and the Media: The Virtual Network Behind the Message

Daniel Kimmage speaks at the Transatlantic Institute on Al-Qaeda and the Media (20 May 08)

Daniel Kimmage is a Senior Regional Analyst at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. He was the coauthor, together with Kathleen Ridolfo, of “Iraqi Insurgent Media: The War of Images and Ideas,” a 2007 report covered by The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Times, CNN and NPR. He is also the author of “The Al-Qaeda Media Nexus,” a recent study of online jihadist media networks. His previous work on jihadist ideology has appeared in The New Republic and Slate. He has also written extensively on post-Soviet politics and business.

Since December 2003, Kimmage has been a regional analyst at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, focusing on Russian and Central Asian politics, energy security, terrorism, and jihadist ideology. From 1997-2002, Kimmage lived in St. Petersburg, Russia, where he was the English-language editor for the quarterly journal "Manuscripta Orientalia" at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences. His other work at the Institute ranged from a study of commentaries on the Koran to research on the expansion of the Russian empire in Central Asia. Kimmage also worked as a consultant for a number of Russian and foreign firms in St. Petersburg.

Kimmage received his undergraduate education at the State University of New York at Binghamton and went on to earn an M.A. in Russian and Islamic history from Cornell University in 1996. He has studied Arabic at the King Fahd School of Translation in Morocco and Uzbek at Indiana University. Bilingual in English and Russian, Kimmage is fluent in Arabic and reads Persian, French, German, Swahili and Uzbek.