FRED BURTON is Vice President of Intelligence and Counterterrorism at Stratfor, the largest global private intelligence company, and is one of the world’s foremost experts on security, terrorists and terrorist organizations.
Mr. Burton is a former State Department counter terrorism deputy chief and DSS Agent who orchestrated the arrest of Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the first World Trade Center bombing. Mr. Burton also conducted the debriefings of the U.S. hostages held in Lebanon; investigated the plane crash that killed President Zia of Pakistan, the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, and a U.S. Army general. Burton was instrumental in the development of the State Department’s Rewards for Justice Program to target terrorists like Yousef and Osama Bin Laden; investigated the assassination of Israeli President Rabin; the killing of Rabbi Meir Kahane; the al-Qaeda New York City bombing plots; the Libyan-backed terrorist attacks on diplomats in Sana’a and Khartoum; and countless other terrorist attacks and threats around the globe.
Burton is the author of a bestselling memoir, Ghost: Confessions of a Counterterrorism Agent, and Chasing Shadows: A Special Agent’s Hunt to Bring a Cold War Assassin to Justice (Palgrave, 2011).