Dan O’Shea is a combat veteran with more than twenty five years of leadership and special operations experience built upon multiple Middle East and Africa tours spanning more than two decades. An asymmetric warfare specialist with extensive overseas and combat experience, O’Shea is a recognized subject matter expert in counter-insurgency, terrorism, and kidnapping/hostage rescue. Dan served as the Hostage Working Group Coordinator for the US Ambassador in Iraq and as a counter-insurgency (COIN) Adviser for the Commander International Security Assistance Force (COMISAF) Afghanistan. O’Shea, is a retired Navy SEAL Commander, Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran.
CDR O’Shea established and served as the Coordinator of the Hostage Working Group (HWG), at the US Embassy in Baghdad Iraq during the height of the Al Qaeda inspired hostage-taking crisis. The HWG was the US Mission’s primary planning facilitator, intelligence fusion node, and coordinating element for all hostage-taking incidents in Iraq. HWG coalesced the entire spectrum of inter-agency (IA) operations from diplomacy, Intelligence-sharing, law enforcement and military special operations into a force multiplier and post 9/11 model for success. O’Shea managed the inter-agency coordination of more than 300 kidnapping incidents and played a direct role in every major international kidnapping incident in Iraq from 2004 to 2006. O’Shea arrived at the height of the hostage-taking campaign targeting foreigners that averaged more than 40 per month; by the end of his service, foreign kidnappings in Iraq were in single digits with only one foreigner reported taken, in each of the last two months of his tour.
Recognized as an Islamic-extremist subject matter expert, O’Shea, is a past Associate Fellow and lecturer at the Joint Special Operations University and the Overseas Security Advisory Council (OSAC). A fellow at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies (CADS) and Research Associate at Syracuse University – Institute for National Security and Counter Terrorism (INSCT). A frequent CNN, BBC, Fox and MSNBC military and counterterrorism analyst, O’Shea Co-Produced the Discovery Channel’s “Kidnap & Rescue” series regarding the global kidnapping industry.
Dan graduated from the US Naval Academy with a BS in History in 1991 and received a Masters in Executive Leadership from the University of San Diego Business School in 2001.
