Steven Emerson
Encyclopedia
Steven Emerson, is an American journalist
and author, who writes about national security, terrorism
, and Islamic extremism
.
Emerson is the author of six books, and co-author of two more. His television documentary Jihad in America won the 1994 George Polk Award for best Television Documentary, and top prize for best investigative reporting from Investigative Reporters and Editors
. He is also the Executive Director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), a data-gathering center on Islamist groups. Emerson frequently testifies before Congressional committees on al-Qaeda
and other terrorist organizations.
in 1976, and a Master of Arts
in sociology
in 1977.
He went to Washington, D.C., in 1977 with the intention of putting off his law school studies for a year. He worked on staff as an investigator for the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee
until 1982, and as an executive assistant to Democratic
Senator Frank Church
of Idaho
.
, for whom he wrote a series of articles in 1982 on the influence of Saudi Arabia
on U.S. corporations, law firms, public-relations outfits, and educational institutions. In their pursuit of large contracts with Saudi Arabia, he argued, U.S. businesses became unofficial, unregistered lobbyists for Saudi interests.
He expanded this material in 1985 in his first book, The American House of Saud: The Secret Petrodollar Connection.
-era efforts to strengthen U.S. covert capabilities. Reviewing the book, The New York Times
wrote: "Among the grace notes of Mr. Emerson's fine book are many small, well-told stories".
In 1990, he co-authored The Fall of Pan Am 103: Inside the Lockerbie Investigation, which argued for the alternate theory that Iran was behind the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103
. Reviewing the book, The New York Times wrote: "Mr. Emerson and Mr. Duffy have put together a surpassing account of the investigation to date, rich with drama and studded with the sort of anecdotal details that give the story the appearance of depth and weight." The newspaper listed it as an "editors' choice" on their Best Sellers List, and cited it as a "notable book of the year".
In 1990, he joined CNN as an investigative correspondent and continued to write about terrorism. In 1991, he published Terrorist: The Inside Story of the Highest-Ranking Iraqi Terrorist Ever to Defect to the West, detailing how Iraq spread and increased its terror network in the 1980s with U.S. support.
(PBS). The documentary, filmed between 1988 and 1993 at rallies in half a dozen U.S. cities as he posed as an inquisitive journalist exploring the tenets of Islam, exposed clandestine operations of Islamist groups in the U.S. It aired as a Frontline TV broadcast in November 1994.
In the documentary, he stood in front of the Twin Towers
and warned:
Emerson noted at the outset that "the overwhelming majority of Muslims are not members of militant groups." But the message of the documentary was that seemingly respectable Muslim organizations have ties with militants who preach violence against moderate Muslims, as well as against Christians and Jews, and that charitable contributions to those organizations make their way to extremists. He documented meetings in American hotels at which Muslims called for a holy war, raised funds for terror organizations, and predicted that terror would ultimately come to the U.S. He also filmed Muslim-American youth training with weapons in summer camps, and interviewed supporters of terror who operated under the cover of charitable organizations.
He showed videos of Muslim fundamentalist speakers such as Abdullah Azzam in Brooklyn urging his audience to wage jihad
in America (which Azzam explains "means fighting only, fighting with the sword"), Fayiz Azzam (a cousin of Abdullah) telling an Atlanta audience:
and Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman
in Detroit (later convicted of conspiring to blow up several New York City landmarks, and sentenced to life in prison) calling for jihad against the infidel. Sheik Mohammed Al-Asi of Chicago said: "If the Americans are placing their forces in the Persian Gulf, we should be creating another war front for the Americans in the Muslim world," and at a November 1993 Hamas
rally in New Jersey hundreds chanted: "We buy paradise with the blood of the Jews."
Near the program's end, Emerson prophetically said: "As the activities of Muslim radicals expand in the United States, future attacks seem inevitable. Combating these groups within the boundaries of the Constitution
will be the greatest challenge to law enforcement since the war on organized crime."
The Council on American-Islamic Relations
(CAIR), a Muslim organization in Washington complained that PBS denied requests by Arab and Muslim journalists to screen the program before its showing, and that Emerson was promoting "a wild theory about an Islamic terrorist network in America." The New York Times opined that CAIR's concerns "prove understandable (which is not to say the pressure to change or cancel the documentary was justified), since 'Jihad in America' is likely to awaken viewers' unease over what Muslim groups here may be up to".
After the film aired in South Africa, Emerson said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) informed him that a South African Muslim group had dispatched a team to the U.S. to assassinate him. According to Slate
, people who visit his Washington, D.C., office are blindfolded en route, and employees call it "the bat cave".
He received the 1994 George Polk Award for best Television Documentary. He also received the top prize for best investigative report from the Investigative Reporters and Editors
Organization (IRE).
Emerson elaborated on this subject in his 2006 book, Jihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Islam in the U.S.
to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). When in February 2003 the U.S. indicted Al-Arian, accusing him of being the North American leader of PIJ and financing and helping support suicide bombings, The New York Times noted that Emerson "has complained about Mr. Al-Arian's activities in the United States for nearly a decade." In 2006, Al-Arian pleaded guilty to conspiracy to help a "specially designated terrorist
" organization, PIJ, and was sentenced to 57 months in prison, after a jury deadlocked on 9 charges (8 of which the government agreed to drop as part of the plea bargain) and acquitted him on another 8. Al-Arian said that he knew of the terrorist group's violent acts, though no evidence was admitted at trial showing that he was involved with violent acts.
In the wake of the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building
(by Timothy McVeigh
), Emerson said, in what a The Boston Globe
article termed a "shrill prediction", that it bore the "trait" of "Middle Eastern terrorists" because it "tried to kill as many as possible." Emerson responded to criticism of his comment by saying that he was referring only to a fanatical minority in the Islamic community, and pointed out that he was one of many experts interviewed after the bombing who concluded that there were similarities between Oklahoma City and Middle Eastern terrorism.
In testimony on March 19, 1996, to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Emerson described the Holy Land Foundation as "the main fund-raising arm for Hamas in the United States." In 2007, federal prosecutors brought charges against Holy Land for funding Hamas
and other Islamic terrorist organizations. In 2009, the founders of Holy Land were given life sentences for "funneling $12 million to Hamas."
In early 1997, Emerson told the Middle East Quarterly
that the threat of terrorism "is greater now than before the World Trade Center bombing [in 1993] as the numbers of these groups and their members expands. In fact, I would say that the infrastructure now exists to carry off twenty simultaneous World Trade Center-type bombings across the United States."
On February 24, 1998, Emerson testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee: "The foreign terrorist threat in the United States is one of the most important issues we face.... We now face distinct possibilities of mass civilian murder the likes of which have not been seen since World War II." And just a few months before 9/11, he wrote on May 31, 2001: "Al-Qaeda is ... planning new attacks on the US.... [It has] learned, for example, how to destroy large buildings.... Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups ... have silently declared war on the US; in turn, we must fight them as we would in a war."
In January 2001 it was reported that Emerson pointed out that the U.S. had missed clues that would have allowed it to focus on al-Qaeda early on. One of the men convicted in the World Trade Center bombing, Ahmad Ajaj, returned to the U.S. from Pakistan in 1992 with a bomb manual later seized by the U.S. An English translation of the document, entered into evidence in the World Trade Center trial, said that the manual was dated 1982, that it had been published in Amman, Jordan, and that it carried a heading on the front and succeeding pages: "The Basic Rule". But those were all errors, as Emerson pointed out. The heading said "al-Qaeda"—which translates as "The Base". In addition, the document was published in 1989, a year after al-Qaeda was founded, and the place of publication was Afghanistan, not Jordan.
In 2010, The New York Times quoted Emerson criticizing the Obama administration’s solicitation of Muslim and Arab-American organizations such as the Islamic Society of North America
, which was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator
in a 2008 case against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development
, whose leaders were convicted of funneling money to Hamas
, saying: "I think dialogue is good, but it has to be with genuine moderates. These are the wrong groups to legitimize." ISNA denies any links to terrorism.
, Hamas
, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad
. He has also given interviews debunking 9/11 conspiracy theories
, and is a contributing expert to the Counterterrorism Blog.
In March 2004, Newsweek
ran an article entitled "How Clarke 'Outsourced' Terror Intel; the Former Counterterrorism Chief Tapped a Private Researcher to Develop Intelligence on Al-Qaeda. The Disclosure Sheds New Light on White House Frustrations with the FBI". The article detailed the high level of reliance Clarke placed on Emerson's information, in lieu of that of the FBI.
The Investigative Project is registered as a non-profit charity. However, in 2008 the Investigative Project transferred $3.49 million to Emerson's for-profit company (SAE Productions). Ken Berger, the head of Charity Navigator
(a non-profit charity watchdog) criticized the Investigative Project as being a front organization
collecting funds for SAE Productions. According to USA Today
, the Investigative Project solicits money by telling donors they're in imminent danger from Muslims. A spokesperson for Emerson's company responded, saying that the actions were legal and designed to protect workers from death threat
s.
as "an expert on intelligence", and by the New York Post
as "the nation's foremost journalistic expert on terrorism". Articles in other newspaper
publications have referred to Emerson as either a counter-terrorist or terrorism expert.
Richard Clarke
, former head of counter-terrorism for the United States National Security Council
, said of Emerson:
Philip Jenkins
, in his 2003 book, Images of terror: what we can and can't know about terrorism responded that certain groups criticize Emerson in order to silence and delegitimize his views.
libertarian
journalist
Stephen Suleyman Schwartz wrote an article defending Emerson that attempted to explain why Islamists
dislike him.
in The New York Times of The Fall of Pan Am 103, while noting that the authors were "respected journalists" and "not to be lightly dismissed," and that they "talked to 250 people, including senior law enforcement and intelligence officials in seven nations", opined that charges of Iranian complicity were presented "without much substantiation" although Wines did go on to say that: "They build a convincing circumstantial case against Iran and its terrorist agents."
gave a "dart" to Emerson and co-author Brian Duffy
for their "want of professional manners", saying a number of passages in their The Fall of Pan Am 103 bore "a striking resemblance, in both substance and style" to reports in the Syracuse Post-Standard
.
Adrienne Edgar, writing in The New York Times Book Review
described Emerson and Cristina del Sesto's 1991 book Terrorist, as "marred by factual errors (such as mistranslations of Arabic names) and marked by "a pervasive anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian bias." Emerson and del Sesto responded: "We defy anyone to point to any passages that suggest such bias.... these characterizations of the book are wild figments of Ms. Edgar's political imagination."
In a 1995 editorial in The Nation
, Robert I. Friedman accused Emerson of "creating mass hysteria against American Arabs."
A 1999 article in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram Weekly
criticized the detention of two Saudi airplane passengers who mistakenly tried to open the cockpit door of the plane they were on, thinking it was the bathroom. The newspaper claimed Emerson was the cause of the "Islamaphobia" that led to the authorities' overreaction, as he had "turned denigrating Islam into a full-time job."
Emerson was also criticized in a 2002 review of American Jihad in the liberal Salon
by Eric Boehlert
. Boehlert called Emerson a "heavy-handed scaremonger who fails to grasp – or deliberately blurs – the most rudimentary distinctions between different radical groups." Boehlert also criticizes Emerson for saying that Ghazi Ibrahim abu Mezer, a Palestinian immigrant who planned to blow up a Brooklyn, N.Y., subway station, was a member of Hamas when James Kallstrom, head of the New York FBI office, said that he wasn't. A Chicago Tribune
article, however, notes that while Kallstrom did indeed say there was no connection, the AP reported that a federal law enforcement source said that both suspects were linked to Hamas.
Boehlert also criticized Emerson for suggesting that Katherine Smith, a 49-year-old Tennessee motor vehicles inspector who died when her car exploded was the victim of assassination even though authorities denied this. Boehlert quotes a former director of counterterrorism for the CIA Vincent Cannistraro
who said of Emerson's thesis:
found that Emerson's for-profit company entitled SAE products collected $3.3 Million in 2008 for researching alleged ties between American Muslims and overseas terrorism. The article reported that Emerson's organization's tax-exempt status was facing questions at the same time he was accusing Muslim groups of tax improprieties, with Ken Berger, president of Charity Navigator
(a nonprofit watchdog group ) saying, "Basically, you have a nonprofit acting as a front organization, and all that money going to a for-profit...it's wrong. This is off the charts." A spokesperson for Emerson's company responded, saying that the actions were legal and designed to protect workers from death threat
s.
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
and author, who writes about national security, terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
, and Islamic extremism
Islamism
Islamism also , lit., "Political Islam" is set of ideologies holding that Islam is not only a religion but also a political system. Islamism is a controversial term, and definitions of it sometimes vary...
.
Emerson is the author of six books, and co-author of two more. His television documentary Jihad in America won the 1994 George Polk Award for best Television Documentary, and top prize for best investigative reporting from Investigative Reporters and Editors
Investigative Reporters and Editors
Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. is a nonprofit organization that focuses on the quality of investigative reporting. Formed in 1975, it presents the IRE Awards and holds conferences and training classes for journalists. Its headquarters is in Columbia, Missouri, at the University of...
. He is also the Executive Director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT), a data-gathering center on Islamist groups. Emerson frequently testifies before Congressional committees on al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
and other terrorist organizations.
Education and early career
Emerson received a Bachelors of Arts from Brown UniversityBrown University
Brown University is a private, Ivy League university located in Providence, Rhode Island, United States. Founded in 1764 prior to American independence from the British Empire as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations early in the reign of King George III ,...
in 1976, and a Master of Arts
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...
in sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
in 1977.
He went to Washington, D.C., in 1977 with the intention of putting off his law school studies for a year. He worked on staff as an investigator for the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee
United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
The United States Senate Committee on Foreign Relations is a standing committee of the United States Senate. It is charged with leading foreign-policy legislation and debate in the Senate. The Foreign Relations Committee is generally responsible for overseeing and funding foreign aid programs as...
until 1982, and as an executive assistant to Democratic
Democratic Party (United States)
The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
Senator Frank Church
Frank Church
Frank Forrester Church III was an American lawyer and politician. A member of the Democratic Party, he served as a United States Senator from Idaho from 1957 to 1981....
of Idaho
Idaho
Idaho is a state in the Rocky Mountain area of the United States. The state's largest city and capital is Boise. Residents are called "Idahoans". Idaho was admitted to the Union on July 3, 1890, as the 43rd state....
.
Journalist and commentator
Emerson was a freelance writer for The New RepublicThe New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
, for whom he wrote a series of articles in 1982 on the influence of Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
on U.S. corporations, law firms, public-relations outfits, and educational institutions. In their pursuit of large contracts with Saudi Arabia, he argued, U.S. businesses became unofficial, unregistered lobbyists for Saudi interests.
He expanded this material in 1985 in his first book, The American House of Saud: The Secret Petrodollar Connection.
U.S. News and World Report and CNN
From 1986 to 1989 he worked for U.S. News and World Report as a senior editor specializing in national security issues. In 1988, he published Secret Warriors: Inside the Covert Military Operations of the Reagan Era, a strongly critical review of Ronald ReaganRonald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
-era efforts to strengthen U.S. covert capabilities. Reviewing the book, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
wrote: "Among the grace notes of Mr. Emerson's fine book are many small, well-told stories".
In 1990, he co-authored The Fall of Pan Am 103: Inside the Lockerbie Investigation, which argued for the alternate theory that Iran was behind the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103
Pan Am Flight 103
Pan Am Flight 103 was Pan American World Airways' third daily scheduled transatlantic flight from London Heathrow Airport to New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport...
. Reviewing the book, The New York Times wrote: "Mr. Emerson and Mr. Duffy have put together a surpassing account of the investigation to date, rich with drama and studded with the sort of anecdotal details that give the story the appearance of depth and weight." The newspaper listed it as an "editors' choice" on their Best Sellers List, and cited it as a "notable book of the year".
In 1990, he joined CNN as an investigative correspondent and continued to write about terrorism. In 1991, he published Terrorist: The Inside Story of the Highest-Ranking Iraqi Terrorist Ever to Defect to the West, detailing how Iraq spread and increased its terror network in the 1980s with U.S. support.
Jihad in America
Emerson left CNN in 1993 to work on a documentary, Terrorists Among Us: Jihad in America, for the Public Broadcasting ServicePublic Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
(PBS). The documentary, filmed between 1988 and 1993 at rallies in half a dozen U.S. cities as he posed as an inquisitive journalist exploring the tenets of Islam, exposed clandestine operations of Islamist groups in the U.S. It aired as a Frontline TV broadcast in November 1994.
In the documentary, he stood in front of the Twin Towers
World Trade Center
The original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...
and warned:
"The survivors of the explosion at the World Trade Center in 1993 are still suffering from the trauma, but as far as everyone else is concerned, all this was a spectacular news event that is over. Is it indeed over? The answer is: apparently not. A network of Muslim extremists is committed to a jihadJihadJihad , an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād translates as a noun meaning "struggle". Jihad appears 41 times in the Quran and frequently in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God ". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is...
against America. Their ultimate aim is to establish a Muslim empire."
Emerson noted at the outset that "the overwhelming majority of Muslims are not members of militant groups." But the message of the documentary was that seemingly respectable Muslim organizations have ties with militants who preach violence against moderate Muslims, as well as against Christians and Jews, and that charitable contributions to those organizations make their way to extremists. He documented meetings in American hotels at which Muslims called for a holy war, raised funds for terror organizations, and predicted that terror would ultimately come to the U.S. He also filmed Muslim-American youth training with weapons in summer camps, and interviewed supporters of terror who operated under the cover of charitable organizations.
He showed videos of Muslim fundamentalist speakers such as Abdullah Azzam in Brooklyn urging his audience to wage jihad
Jihad
Jihad , an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād translates as a noun meaning "struggle". Jihad appears 41 times in the Quran and frequently in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God ". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is...
in America (which Azzam explains "means fighting only, fighting with the sword"), Fayiz Azzam (a cousin of Abdullah) telling an Atlanta audience:
"Blood must flow. There must be widows; there must be orphans, hands and limbs must be severed, and limbs and blood must be spread everywhere in order that Allah's religion can stand on its feet",
and Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman
Omar Abdel-Rahman
Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman , commonly known in the United States as "The Blind Sheikh", is a blind Egyptian Muslim leader who is currently serving a life sentence at the Butner Medical Center which is part of the Butner Federal Correctional Institution in Butner, North Carolina, United...
in Detroit (later convicted of conspiring to blow up several New York City landmarks, and sentenced to life in prison) calling for jihad against the infidel. Sheik Mohammed Al-Asi of Chicago said: "If the Americans are placing their forces in the Persian Gulf, we should be creating another war front for the Americans in the Muslim world," and at a November 1993 Hamas
Hamas
Hamas is the Palestinian Sunni Islamic or Islamist political party that governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas also has a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades...
rally in New Jersey hundreds chanted: "We buy paradise with the blood of the Jews."
Near the program's end, Emerson prophetically said: "As the activities of Muslim radicals expand in the United States, future attacks seem inevitable. Combating these groups within the boundaries of the Constitution
United States Constitution
The Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the United States of America. It is the framework for the organization of the United States government and for the relationship of the federal government with the states, citizens, and all people within the United States.The first three...
will be the greatest challenge to law enforcement since the war on organized crime."
The Council on American-Islamic Relations
Council on American-Islamic Relations
The Council on American-Islamic Relations is America's largest Muslim civil liberties advocacy organization that deals with civil advocacy and promotes human rights...
(CAIR), a Muslim organization in Washington complained that PBS denied requests by Arab and Muslim journalists to screen the program before its showing, and that Emerson was promoting "a wild theory about an Islamic terrorist network in America." The New York Times opined that CAIR's concerns "prove understandable (which is not to say the pressure to change or cancel the documentary was justified), since 'Jihad in America' is likely to awaken viewers' unease over what Muslim groups here may be up to".
After the film aired in South Africa, Emerson said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
(FBI) informed him that a South African Muslim group had dispatched a team to the U.S. to assassinate him. According to Slate
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
, people who visit his Washington, D.C., office are blindfolded en route, and employees call it "the bat cave".
He received the 1994 George Polk Award for best Television Documentary. He also received the top prize for best investigative report from the Investigative Reporters and Editors
Investigative Reporters and Editors
Investigative Reporters and Editors, Inc. is a nonprofit organization that focuses on the quality of investigative reporting. Formed in 1975, it presents the IRE Awards and holds conferences and training classes for journalists. Its headquarters is in Columbia, Missouri, at the University of...
Organization (IRE).
Emerson elaborated on this subject in his 2006 book, Jihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Islam in the U.S.
Voiced concerns
It was Emerson's 1994 documentary Jihad in America that first linked Sami Al-ArianSami Al-Arian
Dr. Sami Amin Al-Arian , is a former resident of Temple Terrace, Florida, now living in Northern Virginia, who is a Muslim activist, and former University of South Florida professor of computer engineering...
to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ). When in February 2003 the U.S. indicted Al-Arian, accusing him of being the North American leader of PIJ and financing and helping support suicide bombings, The New York Times noted that Emerson "has complained about Mr. Al-Arian's activities in the United States for nearly a decade." In 2006, Al-Arian pleaded guilty to conspiracy to help a "specially designated terrorist
Specially Designated Terrorist
A Specially Designated Terrorist is any person who is determined by the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury to be a specially designated terrorist under notices or regulations issued by the Office of Foreign Assets Control ....
" organization, PIJ, and was sentenced to 57 months in prison, after a jury deadlocked on 9 charges (8 of which the government agreed to drop as part of the plea bargain) and acquitted him on another 8. Al-Arian said that he knew of the terrorist group's violent acts, though no evidence was admitted at trial showing that he was involved with violent acts.
In the wake of the bombing of the Oklahoma City Federal Building
Oklahoma City bombing
The Oklahoma City bombing was a terrorist bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. It was the most destructive act of terrorism on American soil until the September 11, 2001 attacks. The Oklahoma blast claimed 168 lives, including 19...
(by Timothy McVeigh
Timothy McVeigh
Timothy James McVeigh was a United States Army veteran and security guard who detonated a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995...
), Emerson said, in what a The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe
The Boston Globe is an American daily newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts. The Boston Globe has been owned by The New York Times Company since 1993...
article termed a "shrill prediction", that it bore the "trait" of "Middle Eastern terrorists" because it "tried to kill as many as possible." Emerson responded to criticism of his comment by saying that he was referring only to a fanatical minority in the Islamic community, and pointed out that he was one of many experts interviewed after the bombing who concluded that there were similarities between Oklahoma City and Middle Eastern terrorism.
In testimony on March 19, 1996, to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Emerson described the Holy Land Foundation as "the main fund-raising arm for Hamas in the United States." In 2007, federal prosecutors brought charges against Holy Land for funding Hamas
Hamas
Hamas is the Palestinian Sunni Islamic or Islamist political party that governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas also has a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades...
and other Islamic terrorist organizations. In 2009, the founders of Holy Land were given life sentences for "funneling $12 million to Hamas."
In early 1997, Emerson told the Middle East Quarterly
Middle East Quarterly
Middle East Quarterly is a peer reviewed quarterly journal, a publication of the American conservative think tank Middle East Forum founded by Daniel Pipes in 1994. It is devoted to subjects relating to the Middle East and Islam and analyzes the region "explicitly from the viewpoint of American...
that the threat of terrorism "is greater now than before the World Trade Center bombing [in 1993] as the numbers of these groups and their members expands. In fact, I would say that the infrastructure now exists to carry off twenty simultaneous World Trade Center-type bombings across the United States."
On February 24, 1998, Emerson testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee: "The foreign terrorist threat in the United States is one of the most important issues we face.... We now face distinct possibilities of mass civilian murder the likes of which have not been seen since World War II." And just a few months before 9/11, he wrote on May 31, 2001: "Al-Qaeda is ... planning new attacks on the US.... [It has] learned, for example, how to destroy large buildings.... Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups ... have silently declared war on the US; in turn, we must fight them as we would in a war."
In January 2001 it was reported that Emerson pointed out that the U.S. had missed clues that would have allowed it to focus on al-Qaeda early on. One of the men convicted in the World Trade Center bombing, Ahmad Ajaj, returned to the U.S. from Pakistan in 1992 with a bomb manual later seized by the U.S. An English translation of the document, entered into evidence in the World Trade Center trial, said that the manual was dated 1982, that it had been published in Amman, Jordan, and that it carried a heading on the front and succeeding pages: "The Basic Rule". But those were all errors, as Emerson pointed out. The heading said "al-Qaeda"—which translates as "The Base". In addition, the document was published in 1989, a year after al-Qaeda was founded, and the place of publication was Afghanistan, not Jordan.
In 2010, The New York Times quoted Emerson criticizing the Obama administration’s solicitation of Muslim and Arab-American organizations such as the Islamic Society of North America
Islamic Society of North America
The Islamic Society of North America , based in Plainfield, Indiana, USA, is a Muslim umbrella group. It has been described in the media as the largest Muslim organization in North America.-History:...
, which was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator
Unindicted co-conspirator
An unindicted co-conspirator, or unindicted conspirator, is a person or entity that is alleged in an indictment to have engaged in conspiracy, but who is not charged in the same indictment...
in a 2008 case against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development
Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development
The Holy Land Foundation was the largest Islamic charity in the United States. Headquartered in Richardson, Texas, it was originally known as Occupied Land Fund....
, whose leaders were convicted of funneling money to Hamas
Hamas
Hamas is the Palestinian Sunni Islamic or Islamist political party that governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas also has a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades...
, saying: "I think dialogue is good, but it has to be with genuine moderates. These are the wrong groups to legitimize." ISNA denies any links to terrorism.
The Investigative Project Controversy
Emerson is also the founder and Executive Director of The Investigative Project, a large intelligence archive on Islamist groups around the world. He started the Project in 1995, after the broadcast of Jihad in America. Since September 2001, Emerson has testified before committees of both houses of Congress many times on terrorist funding and on the operational structures of groups including al-QaedaAl-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
, Hamas
Hamas
Hamas is the Palestinian Sunni Islamic or Islamist political party that governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas also has a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades...
, Hezbollah, and Islamic Jihad
Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine
The Islamic Jihad Movement in Palestine known in the West as simply Palestinian Islamic Jihad , is a small Palestinian militant organization. The group has been labelled as a terrorist group by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, Australia and Israel...
. He has also given interviews debunking 9/11 conspiracy theories
9/11 conspiracy theories
9/11 conspiracy theories are theories that disagree with the widely accepted account that the September 11 attacks were perpetrated solely by al-Qaeda. These theories arose because of what proponents of the conspiracy theories believe to be inconsistencies in the official conclusions or some...
, and is a contributing expert to the Counterterrorism Blog.
In March 2004, Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
ran an article entitled "How Clarke 'Outsourced' Terror Intel; the Former Counterterrorism Chief Tapped a Private Researcher to Develop Intelligence on Al-Qaeda. The Disclosure Sheds New Light on White House Frustrations with the FBI". The article detailed the high level of reliance Clarke placed on Emerson's information, in lieu of that of the FBI.
The Investigative Project is registered as a non-profit charity. However, in 2008 the Investigative Project transferred $3.49 million to Emerson's for-profit company (SAE Productions). Ken Berger, the head of Charity Navigator
Charity Navigator
Charity Navigator is an independent, non-profit organization that evaluates American charities. Its stated goal is "to advance a more efficient and responsive philanthropic marketplace by evaluating the financial health of America's largest charities."-About:...
(a non-profit charity watchdog) criticized the Investigative Project as being a front organization
Front organization
A front organization is any entity set up by and controlled by another organization, such as intelligence agencies, organized crime groups, banned organizations, religious or political groups, advocacy groups, or corporations...
collecting funds for SAE Productions. According to USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
, the Investigative Project solicits money by telling donors they're in imminent danger from Muslims. A spokesperson for Emerson's company responded, saying that the actions were legal and designed to protect workers from death threat
Death threat
A death threat is a threat of death, often made anonymously, by one person or a group of people to kill another person or groups of people. These threats are usually designed to intimidate victims in order to manipulate their behavior, thus a death threat is a form of coercion...
s.
Praise
Emerson has been referred to by The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
as "an expert on intelligence", and by the New York Post
New York Post
The New York Post is the 13th-oldest newspaper published in the United States and is generally acknowledged as the oldest to have been published continuously as a daily, although – as is the case with most other papers – its publication has been periodically interrupted by labor actions...
as "the nation's foremost journalistic expert on terrorism". Articles in other newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
publications have referred to Emerson as either a counter-terrorist or terrorism expert.
Richard A. Clarke
Richard Alan Clarke was a U.S. government employee for 30 years, 1973–2003. He worked for the State Department during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. In 1992, President George H.W. Bush appointed him to chair the Counter-terrorism Security Group and to a seat on the United States National...
, former head of counter-terrorism for the United States National Security Council
United States National Security Council
The White House National Security Council in the United States is the principal forum used by the President of the United States for considering national security and foreign policy matters with his senior national security advisors and Cabinet officials and is part of the Executive Office of the...
, said of Emerson:
"I think of Steve as the Paul ReverePaul ReverePaul Revere was an American silversmith and a patriot in the American Revolution. He is most famous for alerting Colonial militia of approaching British forces before the battles of Lexington and Concord, as dramatized in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem, Paul Revere's Ride...
of terrorism ... We'd always learn things [from him] we weren’t hearing from the FBI or CIA, things which almost always proved to be true."
Philip Jenkins
Philip Jenkins
Philip Jenkins is as of 2010 the Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of Humanities at Pennsylvania State University . He was Professor and a Distinguished Professor of History and Religious studies at the same institution; and also assistant, associate and then full professor of Criminal Justice and...
, in his 2003 book, Images of terror: what we can and can't know about terrorism responded that certain groups criticize Emerson in order to silence and delegitimize his views.
libertarian
Libertarianism
Libertarianism, in the strictest sense, is the political philosophy that holds individual liberty as the basic moral principle of society. In the broadest sense, it is any political philosophy which approximates this view...
journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
Stephen Suleyman Schwartz wrote an article defending Emerson that attempted to explain why Islamists
Islamic extremism
Islamic extremism refers to two related and partially overlapping but also distinct aspects of extremist interpretations and pursuits of Islamic ideology:...
dislike him.
Mixed
A review by Michael WinesMichael Wines
Stephen Michael Wines is an American journalist currently based in Beijing. He is the China bureau chief for The New York Times. Previously, he had been The New York Times 's bureau chief in Johannesburg and Moscow.-Education and early career:Wines graduated from Pleasure Ridge Park High School in...
in The New York Times of The Fall of Pan Am 103, while noting that the authors were "respected journalists" and "not to be lightly dismissed," and that they "talked to 250 people, including senior law enforcement and intelligence officials in seven nations", opined that charges of Iranian complicity were presented "without much substantiation" although Wines did go on to say that: "They build a convincing circumstantial case against Iran and its terrorist agents."
Criticism
Gloria Cooper of the Columbia Journalism ReviewColumbia Journalism Review
The Columbia Journalism Review is an American magazine for professional journalists published bimonthly by the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism since 1961....
gave a "dart" to Emerson and co-author Brian Duffy
Brian Duffy (photographer)
Brian Duffy was a celebrated English photographer and film producer, best remembered for his fashion photography of the 1960s and 1970s and his creation of the iconic "Aladdin Sane" image for David Bowie.-Early life:...
for their "want of professional manners", saying a number of passages in their The Fall of Pan Am 103 bore "a striking resemblance, in both substance and style" to reports in the Syracuse Post-Standard
Syracuse Post-Standard
The Post-Standard is the major daily newspaper servicing the greater Syracuse, New York, metro area. Affiliated with Syracuse.com, it is owned by Advance Publications. The Post-Standard features regular political commentary from Sean Kirst and local commentary by Dick Case. It is home-delivered in...
.
Adrienne Edgar, writing in The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to The New York Times in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read book review publications in the industry. The offices are located near Times Square in New York...
described Emerson and Cristina del Sesto's 1991 book Terrorist, as "marred by factual errors (such as mistranslations of Arabic names) and marked by "a pervasive anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian bias." Emerson and del Sesto responded: "We defy anyone to point to any passages that suggest such bias.... these characterizations of the book are wild figments of Ms. Edgar's political imagination."
In a 1995 editorial in The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
, Robert I. Friedman accused Emerson of "creating mass hysteria against American Arabs."
A 1999 article in the Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram Weekly
Al-Ahram Weekly
Al-Ahram Weekly is an Egyptian English-language weekly broadsheet printed by the Al-Ahram Publishing House in Cairo, Egypt.It was established in 1991 by the Al-Ahram newspaper, which also runs a French-language weekly version, Al-Ahram Hebdo....
criticized the detention of two Saudi airplane passengers who mistakenly tried to open the cockpit door of the plane they were on, thinking it was the bathroom. The newspaper claimed Emerson was the cause of the "Islamaphobia" that led to the authorities' overreaction, as he had "turned denigrating Islam into a full-time job."
Emerson was also criticized in a 2002 review of American Jihad in the liberal Salon
Salon.com
Salon.com, part of Salon Media Group , often just called Salon, is an online liberal magazine, with content updated each weekday. Salon was founded by David Talbot and launched on November 20, 1995. It was the internet's first online-only commercial publication. The magazine focuses on U.S...
by Eric Boehlert
Eric Boehlert
Eric Boehlert is an American writer at Media Matters for America. Prior to this he was a senior writer for Salon for five years, and before that a contributing editor to Rolling Stone. At Salon Boehlert won the 2002 American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers' Deems Taylor Award for music...
. Boehlert called Emerson a "heavy-handed scaremonger who fails to grasp – or deliberately blurs – the most rudimentary distinctions between different radical groups." Boehlert also criticizes Emerson for saying that Ghazi Ibrahim abu Mezer, a Palestinian immigrant who planned to blow up a Brooklyn, N.Y., subway station, was a member of Hamas when James Kallstrom, head of the New York FBI office, said that he wasn't. A Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
article, however, notes that while Kallstrom did indeed say there was no connection, the AP reported that a federal law enforcement source said that both suspects were linked to Hamas.
Boehlert also criticized Emerson for suggesting that Katherine Smith, a 49-year-old Tennessee motor vehicles inspector who died when her car exploded was the victim of assassination even though authorities denied this. Boehlert quotes a former director of counterterrorism for the CIA Vincent Cannistraro
Vincent Cannistraro
Vincent Cannistraro was Director of Intelligence Programs for the United States National Security Council from 1984 to 1987; Special assistant for Intelligence in the Office of the Secretary of Defense until 1988; and Chief of Operations and Analysis at the Central Intelligence Agency's ...
who said of Emerson's thesis:
"He's trying to say people who move to this country and set up charities and think tanks and are associated with Hamas and Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah, that there's some kind of connection between them and Sept. 11, that there's a liaison or support network. He doesn't know what he's talking about."
Controversies
An article in The TennesseanThe Tennessean
The Tennessean is the principal daily newspaper in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. Its circulation area covers 39 counties in Middle Tennessee and eight counties in southern Kentucky....
found that Emerson's for-profit company entitled SAE products collected $3.3 Million in 2008 for researching alleged ties between American Muslims and overseas terrorism. The article reported that Emerson's organization's tax-exempt status was facing questions at the same time he was accusing Muslim groups of tax improprieties, with Ken Berger, president of Charity Navigator
Charity Navigator
Charity Navigator is an independent, non-profit organization that evaluates American charities. Its stated goal is "to advance a more efficient and responsive philanthropic marketplace by evaluating the financial health of America's largest charities."-About:...
(a nonprofit watchdog group ) saying, "Basically, you have a nonprofit acting as a front organization, and all that money going to a for-profit...it's wrong. This is off the charts." A spokesperson for Emerson's company responded, saying that the actions were legal and designed to protect workers from death threat
Death threat
A death threat is a threat of death, often made anonymously, by one person or a group of people to kill another person or groups of people. These threats are usually designed to intimidate victims in order to manipulate their behavior, thus a death threat is a form of coercion...
s.
Books
- (1985), The American House of Saud: The Secret Petrodollar Connection, Franklin Watts, ISBN 0-531-09778-1
- (1988), Secret Warriors: Inside the Covert Military Operations of the Reagan Era, Putnam, ISBN 0-399-13360-7
- (1990) The Fall of Pan Am 103: Inside the Lockerbie Investigation, with Brian Duffy, Putnam, ISBN 0-399-13521-9
- (1991), Terrorist: The Inside Story of the Highest-Ranking Iraqi Terrorist Ever to Defect to the West, Random House; ISBN 0-679-73701-4
- (1995), The worldwide Jihad movement: Militant Islam targets the West (Policy forum), Institute of the World Jewish Congress
- (2002), American Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among UsAmerican Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among UsAmerican Jihad: The Terrorists Living Among Us is a book by investigative journalist Steven Emerson.-Description:In this book Emerson aims to document the clandestine activities of Islamic terrorist groups such as Hamas in the United States....
, Free Press; 2003 paperback edition, ISBN 0-7432-3435-9 - (2006), Jihad Incorporated: A Guide to Militant Islam in the US, Prometheus Books, ISBN 1-59102-453-6
- (2006), Al-Qaeda in Europe: the new battleground of international jihad, with Lorenzo Vidino, Prometheus Books
Chapters
- (1997) Terrorism in the United States, Vol. 69, # 1, "The Other Fundamentalists", Editor Frank McGuckin, H.W. Wilson Co., ISBN 0-8242-0914-1
- (1998) The future of terrorism: violence in the new millennium, "Terrorism in America: The Threat of Militant Islamic Fundamentalism," Editor Harvey W. Kushner, SAGE, ISBN 0-7619-0869-2
Documentaries
- (1994), Terrorists Among Us: Jihad in America
- (2005), Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the WestObsession: Radical Islam's War Against the WestObsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West, also called Obsession, is a 2005 documentary film about the perceived threat of radical Islam to Western civilization. Using extensive Arab television footage it claims to give an 'insider's view' of the hatred preached by radicals to incite global...
- (2007), Radical Islam: Terror in Its Own WordsRadical Islam: Terror in Its Own WordsRadical Islam: Terror in Its Own Words is a controversial 2007 documentary on Radical Islam featuring commentary from counter-terrorism experts Steven Emerson and Walid Phares and footage from the The Investigative Project and the Middle East Media Research Institute.-Content :The program presents...
Select articles
- "Stymied Warriors", The New York Times MagazineThe New York Times MagazineThe New York Times Magazine is a Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of The New York Times. It is host to feature articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors...
, November 13, 1988 - "Where Have All His Spies Gone?", The New York Times, August 12, 1990
- "Get Ready for Twenty World Trade Center Bombings", Middle East QuarterlyMiddle East QuarterlyMiddle East Quarterly is a peer reviewed quarterly journal, a publication of the American conservative think tank Middle East Forum founded by Daniel Pipes in 1994. It is devoted to subjects relating to the Middle East and Islam and analyzes the region "explicitly from the viewpoint of American...
, Vol. IV, Number 2, interview with Emerson, June 1997 - "Rolling Back the Forces of Terror", with Daniel PipesDaniel PipesDaniel Pipes is an American historian, writer, and political commentator. He is the founder and director of the Middle East Forum and its Campus Watch project, and editor of its Middle East Quarterly journal...
, The Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street JournalThe Wall Street Journal is an American English-language international daily newspaper. It is published in New York City by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corporation, along with the Asian and European editions of the Journal....
, August 13, 2001 - "Radical Outreach; Bush coddles American apologists for radical Islam", The New RepublicThe New RepublicThe magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
, June 28, 2007 - "Paper of CAIR; Glossing over Hamas ties", National ReviewNational ReviewNational Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
, February 8, 2008 - "Deals With Devils; Israel's Awful Terrorist Pacts", The New York Post, July 16, 2008
- "Radicals in our Prisons; How to Stop the Muslim Extremists Recruiting Inmates to Terrorism", The New York Post, May 23, 2009
- "Screening must include religion, ethnicity", CNNCNNCable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
, January 5, 2010
Select testimony
- "Terrorism in Buenos Aires, Panama, London", U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on International Security, International Organizations and Human Rights, August 1, 1994
- "Africa and the Middle East, The Expanding Threat of Terrorism", U.S. House International Relations Committee, Subcommittee on Africa, April 6, 1995
- "Hamas, the PLO, and Terrorist Attacks Against Israel", U.S. House of Representatives Committee on International Relations, March 12, 1996
- "Foreign Terrorists in America: Five Years After the WTC Bombing", U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology, and Government Information, February 24, 1998
- "The Operations of Terrorist Networks in the US and Canada", U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Immigration and Claims, January 26, 2000
- "Classified Information to Prevent the Presence of Terrorists", U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary CommitteeUnited States House Committee on the JudiciaryThe U.S. House Committee on the Judiciary, also called the House Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of the United States House of Representatives. It is charged with overseeing the administration of justice within the federal courts, administrative agencies and Federal law enforcement...
, May 23, 2000 - "The MO of Terrorist Networks in the United States", U.S. House of Representatives Government Reform Committee, Subcommittee on National Security, Veterans Affairs, and International Relations, October 11, 2001
- "Preserving Our Freedoms While Defending Against Terrorism", U.S. Senate Judiciary CommitteeUnited States Senate Committee on the JudiciaryThe United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary is a standing committee of the United States Senate, of the United States Congress. The Judiciary Committee, with 18 members, is charged with conducting hearings prior to the Senate votes on confirmation of federal judges nominated by the...
, December 4, 2001 - "Fundraising Methods and Procedures for Terrorist Organizations", U.S. House of Representatives Financial Services Committee, Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, February 12, 2002
- "Terrorism, Al-Qaeda, and the Muslim World", National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, July 9, 2003
- "Money Laundering and Terror Financing Issues in the Middle East", U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, July 13, 2005
- "Saudi Arabia: Friend or Foe in the War on Terror", U.S. Senate Committee on Judiciary, November 8, 2005
- "The Homeland Security Implications of Radicalization", U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Intelligence, Information Sharing, and Terrorism Risk Assessment, September 20, 2006
- "Assessing the Fight Against Al-Qaeda", U.S. House of Representatives Permanent Select Committee on IntelligenceUnited States House Permanent Select Committee on IntelligenceThe United States House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence is a committee of the United States House of Representatives, currently chaired by Mike Rogers. It is the primary committee in the U.S...
, April 9, 2008 - "State Department Outreach with Islamist Groups," U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs, Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, July 31, 2008
Further reading
- Emerson, Steven. How I made 'Jihad in America' and lived to tell about it", February 26, 2002
- Mintz, John, "The Man Who Gives Terrorism A Name" The Washington Post, November 14, 2001
External links
- Emerson's official website
- Investigative Project on Terrorism website
- Emerson profile, the International Analyst Network
- Counter Terrorism blog, for which Emerson is a contributing expert
- Krantz, Matt, "Talk Today; Interact with People in the News; The bin Laden terror network: Steven Emerson", January 21, 2005, accessed January 20, 2010