PAUL CRUICKSHANK

Paul Cruickshank is a New York based investigative reporter specializing in Al Qaeda and an Alumni Fellow at the Center on Law and Security at New York University’s School of Law. He previously worked as an investigative journalist in London, reporting on al Qaeda and its European affiliates and was part of the CNN reporting team that covered the London July 7, 2005 attacks.  

Cruickshank has written about Al Qaeda and Islamist groups for a variety of international publications and news outlets including The New Republic, The Guardian, Newsweek, The Washington Post, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, Mother Jones, Marie Claire, The Independent, Die Welt, The National Post, The New York Daily News, The Australian and Studies in Conflict and Terrorism. 

Cruickshank has regularly contributed to CNN's reporting of Al Qaeda terrorism and has frequently been a guest on CNN programs such as Anderson Cooper 360 and Larry King Live to provide on-air analysis and reaction to breaking news events. For CNN, he reported from London on the Christmas Day 2009 attempted bombing of an airliner in Detroit and is currently working on a series on the terroist threat to the United States.  

Cruickshank has has also provided commentary on national security issues to the BBC, NBC Nightly News, CBS Evening News, NPR, BBC World Service,  Reuters, Fox News, and Al Jazeera International.

Cruickshank is the author of the introductory guide  "Al Qaeda: the Current Threat," (Pocket Issue, October 2008).

In February 2010 the New America Foundation published an in-depth study by Cruickshank on the Militant Pipeline between the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region and the West.

In December 2009 CNN aired "Homegrown Terror," a 30 minute CNN Special Report. The program contained several reports from a CNN Special Investigations Unit series on the domestic terrorist threat which Cruickshank proposed and helped put together.

In November 2009 CNN aired "The Jihadi Code" a documentary produced by Cruickshank on the repudiation of Al Qaeda by the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, one of the world's most prominent Jihadist groups. The documentary was the result of two years of investigative reporting during which Cruickshank and colleague Nic Robertson obtained exclusive access to Abu Salim prison in Tripoli and exclusive interviews with key players in the talks that led to the breakthrough.

In February 2009 Cruickshank produced a half hour CNN documentary "One Woman's War," which profiled "Al Qaeda living legend" Malika el Aroud. The program was nominated in the category of "best documentary" in the 2009  Monte Carlo Global Television Awards.

In October 2008 Cruickshank's on-camera reporting was featured in the CNN International half-hour documentary  "Deadly Recruits: Female Suicide Bombers." 

Cruickshank was the co-producer of an hour-long Dateline NBC documentary on the 2006 "Airline Plot," which aired in September 2008. The report was awarded second place in the National Headliner Awards for the "best news magazine program" of the year on US network television.

In June 2008 Cruickshank co-authored a cover story in the New Republic with Peter Bergen entitled "The Jihadist Revolt against Bin Laden." The story was reprinted in several leading publications around the world and was picked up by several newspapers, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Economist, Financial Times, and the London Times. Their report also helped generate a Congressional Hearing and a Capitol Hill Panel on Al Qaeda’s ideological vulnerabilities.

In 2006 Cruickshank worked with CNN on a two-hour Emmy-nominated documentary “In the footsteps of bin Laden,” based on Peter Bergen's 2006 Oral History "The Osama Bin Laden I Know," which he helped research.

Cruickshank graduated from Cambridge University with a degree in history, and has a Masters degree with Honors in International Relations from the Paul. H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at the Johns Hopkins University. He has also worked in the European Parliament in Brussels and at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C.

Photo Caption: Paul Cruickshank in Tripoli, Libya on assignment for CNN, September 2009