WarGuy

I was born in Afghanistan, so terrorism was never something I read about—it was the world I grew up in. At sixteen, during Operation Enduring Freedom, I began working alongside U.S. forces on counterterrorism operations. I saw, up close, what violence does to families, to neighborhoods, and to children who never asked to grow up in a war. I've never really stopped carrying those images.

Later, working with the U.S. State Department on cases tied to Taliban and al-Qaeda networks, I spent much of my time simply listening—to investigators, to tribunals, and to the detainees themselves as they explained why they had joined: what they believed, who influenced them, what pushed them toward violence. It taught me something I have never forgotten: if we only respond after the violence, we are already late.

I later came to the United States on a special immigrant visa and continued to serve in the U.S. government. Over the years, I noticed a gap between what I had lived on the ground and the way terrorism is often discussed from a distance—as if it could be reduced to one face, one group, one headline. The truth is more complicated, and more human. Understanding why people are drawn toward violence matters just as much as knowing how to stop it.

That gap is why I founded Rise to Peace in 2016. I wanted to share what I had learned—but even more, I wanted to build a place where others could bring their own experiences, questions, and ideas, and where I could keep learning from them. What began as something small has grown into a community of more than 600 emerging leaders across 40 countries who research, teach, publish, and exchange perspectives on terrorism, conflict, and the forces that pull communities apart. My hope is a simple one: that by understanding these problems earlier, we might help meet a few of them before they become the next crisis, the next attack, or the next war.