Marc Sageman

Who is Marc Sageman?

Marc Sageman, M.D., Ph.D., is a former CIA Operations Officer who was based in Islamabad from 1987 to 1989, where he worked closely with Afghanistan's mujahedin. He has advised various branches of the U.S. government in the War on Terror. He is also a forensic psychiatrist and a counter-terrorism consultant.

He first drew wide attention for his book Understanding Terror Networks, a book that The Economist called "influential." "The most sophisticated analysis of global jihadis yet published. . . . His conclusions have demolished much of the conventional wisdom about who joins jihadi groups."

In Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-First Century, Sageman "suggests that radicalization is a collective rather than an individual process in which friendship and kinship are key components." After the book was negatively reviewed by Bruce Hoffman in Foreign Affairs, a debate, which was covered by The New York Times, ensued between him and Sageman.