Richard Barrett (counter-terrorism expert)

Richard Barrett (born June 14, 1949) is a former British diplomat and intelligence officer who heads the Monitoring Team which supports the United Nations Security Council Committee pursuant to resolution 1988 (2011) and the Committee pursuant to resolution 1989 (2011) concerning Al-Qaida and associated individuals and entities. Mr. Barrett is a recognized global expert on terrorism who frequently appears as a panelist in related conferences and whose commentary is regularly featured in the press.

Mr. Barrett was born in Taplow, U.K. and was educated at Ampleforth College in Yorkshire. In 1973, he was awarded a Master of Arts in Modern History and Italian Literature from University College, Oxford. Mr. Barrett was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1992.

Professional Life
Richard Barrett has been the Coordinator of the New York-based United Nations Monitoring Team since his appointment in 2004. The Team provides analytical support regarding evolving threats posed by Al-Qaida and the Taliban in the context of international counter-terrorism initiatives, and monitors the effectiveness of UN Security Council’s implementation of targeted sanctions against related individuals and entities. Mr. Barrett is also a member of the United Nations Counter Terrorism Implementation Task Force (CTITF), which was established in 2005 to promote the UN Global Counter Terrorism Strategy adopted by the General Assembly in 2006. He chairs the CTITF Working Group on Terrorist use of the Internet which seeks to identify the threat posed by a number of Internet-based terrorist activities, and explores strategies for use by the international community to address these concerns. He also supports the CTITF Working Group on Tackling the Financing of Terrorism

Mr. Barrett has been designated as one of the Global Experts of the Alliance of Civilizations, a group of recognized expert commentators available to the media to provide objective analysis on a range of pressing international issues. He has spoken frequently on television and radio, and his interviews have been featured on Amanpour (CNN) and Charlie Rose (PBS). He is the author of several articles and commentaries including op-eds for The Guardian, The New York Times, The Financial Times and The International Herald Tribune. Before being appointed Coordinator of the Monitoring Team, Mr. Barrett spent his career in government service to the United Kingdom. He has held positions in the British Security Service (MI5) and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Mr. Barrett also served as Director of Global Counter Terrorism Operations for the British Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) both before and after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

He has served abroad in Canada, Jordan, Turkey and the United States.

Upon his retirement from government service in 2004, Mr. Barrett was appointed to his current position by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and has since been reappointed five times by the United Nations Secretaries-General.

Mr. Barrett sits on the boards of the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism in The Hague; the Transnational Crisis Project; the Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation; and, The Center for the Study of United Nations Systems and the Global Legal Order (SUNSGLOW).

Selected Publications

 * Richard Barrett. "Seven Years After 9/11, The International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (September 2008).
 * Richard Barrett and Laila Bokhari. "De-radicalisation and rehabilitation programmes targeting militant jihadists: An overview." Chapter 10 in Leaving Terrorism Behind, Jorgo and Horgan, eds. (Routledge, 2008).
 * Hamed El-Said and Richard Barrett. "Radicalisation and Extremism that Lead to Violent Extremism in the Arab World" in Part III of Globalisation, Democratisation and Radicalisation in the Arab World, El-Said and Harrington, eds. (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).
 * Richard Barrett. "Al-Qaeda and Taliban Sanctions Threatened," Policy Watch 1409 for the Washington Center for Near East Policy (6 October 2008).
 * Richard Barrett, et al. "The Al-Qaeda-Taliban Nexus." Expert Roundup, Council on Foreign Relations (25 November 2009).
 * Richard Barrett. "The broader impact of terrorism on financial stability." Seminar on Current Developments in Monetary and Financial Law Washington, D.C., International Monetary Fund (26 October 2006).
 * Richard Barrett. "The Role of the United Nations in Defeating Al-Qa'ida and Associated Groups," CTC Sentinel 2, no. 4 (April 2009).

Related Links

 * Richard Barrett on the Global Expert Finder Database
 * United Nations Security Council 1267 Committee
 * United Nations Counter-Terrorism Implementation Task Force
 * International Centre for Counter-Terrorism - The Hague
 * Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation
 * The Center for the Study of United Nations Systems and the Global Legal Order