Richard Barrett (born June 14, 1949) is a former British diplomat and intelligence officer who heads the Al-Qaida/Taliban Analytical Support and Sanctions Monitoring Team of the United Nations 1267 Security Council Committee. 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.[1]
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Richard Barrett has been the Coordinator of the New York-based United Nations 1267 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.[2][3] 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 [1]
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.[4] He has spoken frequently on television and radio, and his interviews have been featured on Amanpour (CNN) and Charlie Rose (PBS).[5][6] 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.[7][8][9][10] Before being appointed Coordinator of the 1267 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.[11]
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 three times by the United Nations Secretaries-General.
Mr. Barrett sits on the boards of the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism in The Hague;[12] the Transnational Crisis Project; the Center on Global Counterterrorism Cooperation;[13] and, The Center for the Study of United Nations Systems and the Global Legal Order (SUNSGLOW).[14]