Speaker biographies

Ali al-Ahmed is a Saudi scholar and expert on Saudi political affairs. His areas of expertise include terrorism, Islamic movements, Wahhabi Islam, Saudi political history, Saudi-American relations, and the al-Saud family history. He is a writer and public speaker on Saudi political issues. Formerly a journalist, he exposed major news stories such as the Pentagon’s botched translation of the 9-11 Bin Laden tape and the video of Daniel Pearl’s murder. He has authored reports on Saudi Arabia regarding religious freedom, torture, press freedom, and religious curriculums. He is a frequent consultant to major world media outlets, including CBS News, CNN, PBS, Fox News, the Washington Post, and the Associated Press.

Danielle Pletka is the vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at AEI. Her research areas include the Middle East (including Iran, Iraq, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict), South Asia (India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan), terrorism, and weapons proliferation. While at AEI, Ms. Pletka has developed a conference series on rebuilding post-Saddam Iraq, a project on democracy for the Arab world, a roundtable of experts to discuss global energy security, and a project to develop bilateral relations between India and the United States. She recently served as a member of the congressionally mandated Task Force on the United Nations, established by the United States Institute of Peace. Before coming to AEI, she served for ten years as a senior professional staff member for the Near East and South Asia on the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations. Ms. Pletka has also been a journalist based in Washington and the Middle East.

Nina Shea is the director of the Center for Religious Freedom. A human rights lawyer, she has been an international religious freedom advocate for eighteen years and is nationally known for her book on anti-Christian persecution, In the Lion's Den. Since 1999, she has served as a member of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, which was created by Congress to monitor religious persecution and recommend policy responses to the U.S. government. She represented the United States as a public delegate on the U.N. Commission on Human Rights in 1993 and in 2001. From 1997 to 1999, she served on the Advisory Committee on Religious Freedom Abroad to the U.S. secretary of state.

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