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Alan W. Dowd is a Senior Fellow with the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes on the full range of topics relating to national defense, foreign policy and international security. Dowd’s commentaries and essays have appeared in Policy Review, Parameters, Military Officer, The American Legion Magazine, The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, The Claremont Review of Books, World Politics Review, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Jerusalem Post, The Financial Times Deutschland, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Examiner, The Detroit News, The Sacramento Bee, The Vancouver Sun, The National Post, The Landing Zone, Current, The World & I, The American Enterprise, Fraser Forum, American Outlook, The American and the online editions of Weekly Standard, National Review and American Interest. Beyond his work in opinion journalism, Dowd has served as an adjunct professor and university lecturer; congressional aide; and administrator, researcher and writer at leading think tanks, including the Hudson Institute, Sagamore Institute and Fraser Institute. An award-winning writer, Dowd has been interviewed by Fox News Channel, Cox News Service, The Washington Times, The National Post, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and numerous radio programs across North America. In addition, his work has been quoted by and/or reprinted in The Guardian, CBS News, BBC News and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dowd holds degrees from Butler University and Indiana University. Follow him at twitter.com/alanwdowd.

ASCF News

Scott Tilley is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes the “Technical Power” column, focusing on the societal and national security implications of advanced technology in cybersecurity, space, and foreign relations.

He is an emeritus professor at the Florida Institute of Technology. Previously, he was with the University of California, Riverside, Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, and IBM. His research and teaching were in the areas of computer science, software & systems engineering, educational technology, the design of communication, and business information systems.

He is president and founder of the Center for Technology & Society, president and co-founder of Big Data Florida, past president of INCOSE Space Coast, and a Space Coast Writers’ Guild Fellow.

He has authored over 150 academic papers and has published 28 books (technical and non-technical), most recently Systems Analysis & Design (Cengage, 2020), SPACE (Anthology Alliance, 2019), and Technical Justice (CTS Press, 2019). He wrote the “Technology Today” column for FLORIDA TODAY from 2010 to 2018.

He is a popular public speaker, having delivered numerous keynote presentations and “Tech Talks” for a general audience. Recent examples include the role of big data in the space program, a four-part series on machine learning, and a four-part series on fake news.

He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Victoria (1995).

Contact him at stilley@cts.today.

Iran Claims ‘Satellite-Controlled Machine Gun’ Killed Top Nuclear Scientist

Tuesday, December 8, 2020

Categories: ASCF News Emerging Threats National Preparedness

Comments: 0

Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi, deputy commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), claimed in a state media interview on Sunday that nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh was assassinated on November 27 by a “satellite-controlled machine gun” that utilized an “advanced camera and artificial intelligence.”

Iranian government and media sources previously claimed Fakhrizadeh was killed by a team of “terrorists” armed with Israeli weapons after a fierce gun battle with his bodyguards. Fadavi contradicted these reports by saying there were “no terrorists on the scene.”

Instead, Fadavi said a machine gun mounted on a Nissan pickup truck and controlled over the Internet “focused only on martyr Fakhrizadeh’s face in a way that his wife, despite being only 25 centimetres away, was not shot.”

Fadavi added that a member of the security team was injured while attempting to shield Fakhrizadeh from the 13 shots fired by the remote-controlled gun.

One of the eyewitness accounts of Fakhrizadeh’s death published by Iranian media claimed a Nissan truck was involved in the attack and exploded during the firefight. According to this witness, a number of human assailants were also involved and “three to four individuals” were killed during the battle.

At least one other Iranian official, Supreme National Security Council secretary Ali Shamkhani, has said the attack was “a very complicated operation carried out by using electronic devices” and no human assailants were present at the scene. Several officials have accused Israel and the Iranian opposition of killing Fakhrizadeh.

An Israeli newspaper called Yedioth Ahronoth reported on Sunday that Fakhrizadeh was recorded in 2008 claiming he had been asked to build “five warheads” by the Iranian government. 

This “top secret” recording was said to have been provided to the Bush administration by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to convince the U.S. government that Iran’s covert program to build nuclear weapons was making dangerous progress. Israeli intelligence believes Iran’s nuclear weapons program was still moving forward under Fakhrizadeh’s supervision despite the deal with Iran made by Bush’s successor, President Barack Obama.

Photo: ATTA KENARE/AFP via Getty Images

Link: https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2020/12/07/iran-claims-satellite-controlled-machine-gun-killed-top-nuclear-scientist/

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