Katherine Zimmerman is a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the research manager for AEI’s Critical Threats Project. As AEI’s senior analyst studying terrorist groups, she focuses on the global al Qaeda network and covers the Salafi-jihadi movement and related trends in the Middle East and Africa. She also specializes in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Yemen, al Shabaab in Somalia, and al Qaeda in the Sahel.
Focusing on the threat from the Salafi-jihadi movement, a movement that unites groups like al Qaeda, the Islamic State, and Boko Haram, Ms. Zimmerman explains how it has transformed over the past two decades. The movement's ability to adapt to new conditions and how it insinuates itself into Sunni communities today is one of the reasons the US has only been partially successful in countering. What could be a new approach to combatting this enemy?
Ms. Zimmerman is developing a set of recommendations for US strategy to counter the Salafi-jihadi movement. Through her work, she has developed a new framework for understanding the enemy, which includes al Qaeda and the Islamic State, that is different than the counterterrorism paradigm that guides America's current approach. She has also identified the Salafi-jihadi movement's relationship with Sunni communities as the source of its strength and that the US must work to break these relationships.
Ms. Zimmerman has testified before Congress about the threats to US national security interests emanating from al Qaeda and its network. She has also briefed members of Congress, their staff, and US military, diplomatic, and intelligence community personnel. Her analyses have been widely published, including in CNN.com, Foreign Affairs, FoxNews.com, The Hill, The Huffington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post.
She graduated with distinction from Yale University with a B.A. in political science and modern Middle East studies.
