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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.

Iraq militant group says it is resuming attacks on US forces as base in Syria is targeted

Monday, April 22, 2024

Categories: ASCF News

Comments: 0

Original Source: The Guardian
Reuters and Agence France-Presse contributed to this report

US-troops_Syria_PicCredit_peoplesdispatch

21 April 2024 - An Iraqi militant group has said it will resume attacks on US forces in the country, as it appeared to claim responsibility for a strike on an American military base in north-eastern Syria which saw at least five rockets launched from the Iraqi town of Zummar.

Sunday’s strike against US forces is the first since early February, when Iranian-backed groups in Iraq stopped their attacks against US troops.

It comes one day after Iraq’s prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, returned from a visit to the United States and met with Joe Biden at the White House.

Iraq’s Kataib Hezbollah said Iraqi armed groups had decided to resume attacks on the US presence in the country after seeing little progress on talks to achieve the exit of American troops during al-Sudani’s visit to Washington.

“What happened a short while ago is the beginning,” the group said.

Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, said several rockets had been fired “from Iraqi territory at the Kharab al-Jir base” in north-east Syria, where US forces are stationed.

A statement from the Iraqi security forces accused “outlaw elements of having targeted a base of the international coalition with rockets in the heart of Syrian territory”, at about 9.50pm local time.

Iraqi forces responded to the attack by launching a major search operation in northern Nineveh province which found the vehicle used in the attack, they said in a statement.

The security forces burned the vehicle involved, the statement added.

After a series of rocket attacks and drone strikes by pro-Iran armed factions against US soldiers deployed in the Middle East in the early part of the year, there had been several weeks of calm.

In January, a drone attack killed three US soldiers in the Jordanian desert on the Syrian border. In response, the US military struck dozens of targets in Syria and Iraq, aiming for pro-Iran forces, and drawing criticism from the governments of both countries.

The United States has about 2,500 soldiers stationed in Iraq and nearly 900 across the border in Syria as part of an international coalition created in 2014 to fight the Islamic State group.

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