The Combating Terrorism Center is an academic institution at the United States Military Academy (USMA) in West Point, New York that provides education, research and policy analysis in the specialty areas of terrorism, counterterrorism, homeland security and weapons of mass destruction. Established with private funding in 2003, it operates under the aegis of the Department of Social Sciences of the USMA.

At the time of the attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, West Point's counterterrorism curriculum consisted of a single elective class. In order to fill this gap and provide greater educational resources in terrorism-related issues, the Academy welcomed the creation of the Combating Terrorism Center and included it in its Department of Social Sciences on February 20, 2003. Though thus a part of the United States Military Academy, the CTC was established with private funding and is an independent research group. Primary funding for the founding of the CTC was contributed by Vincent Viola, a 1977 graduate of the United States Military Academy and former chaiman of the New York Mercantile Exchange; significant initial support was also provided by Ross Perot, George Gilmore Jr. and Major (ret.) George Gilmore Sr. The Center's first Distinguished Chair was General (Retired) Wayne Downing until his death in 2007. General (Retired) John P. Abizaid, the former commander of Central Command, presently holds the Distinguished Chair. The current director, Major (P) Reid Sawyer, a founding member of the Center, returned to the Center in June 2008.

Jarret Brachman is a terrorism expert, the author of Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice and a consultant to several government agencies about terrorism.

He is a graduate of Augustana College (BA, 2000) and University of Delaware (MA, 2002; PhD, 2006).

He is a former graduate fellow at the Central Intelligence Agency (2003), and the former director of research at West Point's Combating Terrorism Center (2004–08).

He coined the phrase "jihobbyist" in his 2008 book Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice. It is used to denote a person who is not an active member of a violent jihadi organization such as Al-Qaeda or the Somali Al Shabaab, but who has a fascination with and enthusiasm for jihad and radical Islam.

Brachman, now managing director of Cronus Global LLC and a civilian scholar on the faculty of North Dakota State University, regularly briefs government officials on terrorism issues.

John Philip Abizaid, AO (born April 1, 1951) is a retired General in the United States Army and former Commander of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), overseeing American military operations in a 27-country region, from the Horn of Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, to South and Central Asia, covering much of the Middle East. CENTCOM oversees 250,000 US troops. Abizaid succeeded General Tommy Franks as Commander, USCENTCOM, on July 7, 2003, and was also elevated to the rank of four-star general the same week. He was succeeded by Admiral William J. Fallon on March 16, 2007.

Abizaid retired from the military on May 1, 2007 after 34 years of service. As of 2007, Abizaid is employed as a fellow of the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. He assumed the Distinguished Chair of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point in December 2007. Abizaid was appointed to the board of directors of RPM International on January 24, 2008, and also sits on the board of directors of the Defense Ventures Group. In 2008 he was selected as a Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth College.

Bryan Roberts Price (born June 22, 1962, in San Francisco, California) is a Major League Baseball pitching coach for the Cincinnati Reds. He was also a Minor League Baseball pitcher. Price is known for his ability to speak Spanish to help communicate with Latino players.

He pitched in the California Angels and Seattle Mariners organization for five seasons compiling a record of 31-19 with a 3.74 ERA in 90 games, 75 for starts.

Price was the Seattle Mariners' pitching coach from 2001-2006. Price earned USA Today Baseball Weekly's Pitching Coach of the Year Award in 2001 after leading that staff to the American League ERA title with a 3.54 mark, an improvement of almost one run per game from the previous season.

Price was the Arizona Diamondbacks pitching coach until May 7, 2009 when he resigned after manager Bob Melvin was replaced by A.J. Hinch. Price was named Major League Coach of the Year by Baseball America in 2007 after his D-backs staff posted a 4.13 ERA, fourth best in the National League, on the way to the National League Championship Series. He also worked for the Philadelphia Phillies as a minor league consultant.

Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden ( /oʊˈsɑːmə bɪn moʊˈhɑːmɨd bɪn əˈwɑːd bɪn ˈlɑːdən/; Arabic: أسامة بن محمد بن عوض بن لادن‎, ʾUsāmah bin Muḥammad bin ʿAwaḍ bin Lādin; March 10, 1957 – May 2, 2011), was the founder of Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets. He was a member of the wealthy Saudi bin Laden family, and an ethnic Yemeni Kindite.

Bin Laden was on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists for his involvement in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings. From 2001 to 2011, bin Laden was a major target of the War on Terror, with a US$25 million bounty by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. On May 2, 2011, bin Laden was shot and killed inside a private residential compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by U.S. Navy SEALs and CIA operatives in a covert operation ordered by United States President Barack Obama.