Bio and contact details

Leah was formerly a senior Counter Terrorism Intelligence Analyst with the Australian Federal Police (AFP). During her time with the AFP, Leah served as the organization’s al Qaeda subject matter specialist and worked on a range of international and domestic counter terrorism investigations. She also served  as the senior Intelligence Analyst in the AFP’s Jakarta Regional Cooperation Team (JRCT) in Indonesia and at the AFP’s Forward Operating Post in response to the second Bali bombings. An experienced practitioner and trainer, Leah was involved in providing national & international counter terrorism training & curriculum development.

Prior to joining the AFP, Leah taught at the University of Queensland, where she coordinated the Terrorism and Insurgency in World Politics course. Leah’s specialisation is al Qaeda and militant salafist groups. Her broader terrorism and counter terrorism research interests are operational networks, radicalization and de-radicalization trajectories, terrorist use of the internet, propaganda and recruitment, social network analysis, and computer forensics.

Leah has also worked in private industry in Hong Kong SAR, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom. She holds a PhD in Politics, a Master of International Relations and Asian Politics, and a Bachelor of Arts in Government.

Her work has been published in Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, The Atlantic, as well a number of other publications. She is the author of 

This blog features her terrorism and counter terrorism related writings.

Contact:    

Twitter: @allthingsct

  1. 09/30/2009 at 7:59 pm
    Reply

    Hi Leah I came across your blog recently through ‘Making sense of jihad’.

    I really enjoy reading your posts.

    FREErad!cals is a blog which focuses on radicalisation, de-radicalisation and political violence. We have a team of bloggers who all blog on different topics and different regions. Tim Stevens from ubiwar is our blogger on technology.

    I’d love to hear what you think about us. And come debate with us!

    Hope to read you soon!

    Alexandra

  2. Thomasj911
    10/21/2009 at 2:49 am
    Reply

    Great articles, following on twitter, trying to spread the word. Hope computer problems resolve shortly

  3. 10/24/2009 at 10:12 pm
    Reply

    Farrall

    got a real job

    and when you find one – tell what it is like

    no surprises for where i am now….😉

    Andy

    • Leah Farrall, Australia
      10/24/2009 at 10:30 pm
      Reply

      aaah Mr A how I miss our rants. so you’re out too now huh. looking forward to hearing what you’re up to these days. cheers mate.

  4. j35t3r
    02/14/2010 at 7:18 am
    Reply

    Hi Leah, can’t find a email address for you. really looking forward to talking to you tho. You can direct message me via twitter, I followed you so you should see the link. Peace Out.

  5. CSA Smith
    04/16/2011 at 1:03 pm
    Reply

    Hello Leah,
    I left a message on here for you and came back to see if you had a chance to respond but you had deleted it. Which I guess I don’t mind, since I didn’t plan for my name to be posted on. I would appreciate if you would still consider that question for me.

    Kind Regards…
    C.

    • Leah Farrall, Australia
      04/18/2011 at 10:05 pm
      Reply

      Hi, I’m sorry my memory is a bit hazy. Please email me and I will do my best to reply when I can.

  6. 05/18/2011 at 3:22 am
    Reply

    Hi Leah,

    I love your blog, its very informative and weather i agree with your views or not (which i often do), it is extremely helpful, so thank you.

    With that said, I have a question. Do you think it is possible, or even probable, that the situation with the US and Pakistan is either similar or leading in the same direction that the US and the Mujahedin in Afghanistan back during the Cold War? The similarities are striking if one can take several factors as givens. I won’t list everything now, though I would love to discuss it further. In the end, it seems we are only funding our “friend” now, to only have him fire the same missiles we gave him at us later on.

    What do you think?

    If e-mail is better please reply here and I will gladly e-mail you as soon as possible.

    Thanks!

    BG

    • Leah Farrall, Australia
      06/02/2011 at 1:18 pm
      Reply

      Hi, feel free to send me an email.

  7. karah Somalian
    05/20/2011 at 4:32 am
    Reply

    My sister I inivite you to Islam. If you do not become Muslim you will end up in the hellfire forever. So, read islam and I am sure that if you are honest in your research you will become Muslim.

    • Mike
      07/21/2011 at 8:16 am
      Reply

      Yep, somehow I don’t think she’s too interested in becoming a terrorist. Nice try though!

  8. Umer
    05/28/2011 at 12:25 am
    Reply

    I am fascinated by the depth of your knowledge on the topic of Terrorism with reference to Al-Qaida and Salafist Jihad. I would like to keep in contact with you as I am writing a novel on the theme of Islamic Fundamentalism. I hope to get valuable help from you.

  9. Fier Draca
    09/01/2011 at 2:25 am
    Reply

    Al-Qai’da needed the corrupt Arab regimes to legitimize violent jihad. Now it is opportunistically glomming onto the coattails of successful revolutions as a way to agitate for an Islamic state. It’s failure to create an Islamic state in Iraq should serve as an example of its lack of the barest vision of what the Islamic State would look like. Its energies were absorbed in killing fellow Sunnis who could not stomach AQ’s extreme and sometimes foreign ways. If Islamic states are established in Egypt or Syria or Libya, or Gaza they certainly will not follow the Salifist model.

    So to the question: What is al-Qa’ida? It is an a loosely-affiliated group self-righteous individuals without a workable plan who are inexorably headed toward their own destruction.

  10. 11/29/2011 at 5:02 am
    Reply

    L. did u ever worked on economics of terrorism and how market got benefited by it. u have much data at your disposal.ANALYSE.

  11. 05/04/2012 at 3:38 am
    Reply

    Why do you not include terrorist attacks by the U.S.? You seem to only want to crucify those who are recent terrorists, unlike the U.S. which has invented the idea. Why haven’t you recognized our assassinations of people around the world? Mosadeq in ’53 and the subsequent terrorism we employed in piming the Shah and murdering innocent workers so we could steal their oil? Does terrorism, in your mind, have a shelf life?

  12. 07/19/2012 at 2:27 pm
    Reply

    Very Nice Leah, keep up the good work!!!

  13. 11/25/2012 at 11:15 am
    Reply

    I have really enjoyed your blog and your refreshing views on the very complex issue of terrorism. simple quote “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”

  1. 11/17/2009 at 5:49 am
  2. 04/10/2010 at 11:42 am
  3. 06/26/2012 at 2:56 pm
  4. 07/26/2013 at 5:00 am

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