Seán D. Naylor

Seán D. Naylor was an intelligence and counterterrorism senior staff writer for Foreign Policy. He is the author of Relentless Strike – The Secret History of Joint Special Operations Command (St. Martin’s Press). He previously spent 23 years as a writer for Army Times, where his principal beat was special operations forces. He also covered combat operations, exercises, training, readiness, weapons systems, force modernization and the Army's senior leadership. Naylor received his bachelor's degree in journalism from Boston University in 1988 and a Master of Arts in International Relations from the same institution in 1990. In 1987 he traveled to Pakistan and Afghanistan as a freelance reporter covering the Afghan mujahideen, meeting and conversing with Jalaluddin Haqqani, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Hamid Karzai, among others. For Army Times, Naylor covered military operations as an embedded reporter in Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq. His coverage of 2002’s Operation Anaconda in Afghanistan earned him the White House Correspondents Association’s 2003 Edgar A. Poe award for excellence in reporting an issue of regional or national importance. It also led to a best-selling book, Not A Good Day To Die – The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda, published in March 2005 by Berkley Books, New York, N.Y. Naylor is also the co-author, with Tom Donnelly, of Clash of Chariots – The Great Tank Battles, published by Berkley to favorable reviews in 1996. Born in Canada, and raised in England and Ireland, Naylor became a U.S. citizen on March 14, 2000. He lives in Washington D.C. on Capitol Hill, reluctantly hung up his rugby boots 15 years ago after a 25-year playing career, and is an avid soccer fan.