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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.

Tens of Thousands Flee in New Wave of Brutal Mozambique Attacks

Thursday, February 29, 2024

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Original source: Reuters
February 28, 202412:57 PM EST Updated a day ago

Mozambique_map_souce_wikimedia

MAPUTO, Feb 28 (Reuters) - Tens of thousands of Mozambicans are fleeing their homes in the restive Cabo Delgado province amid a surge in deadly insurgent attacks since January. The attacks, despite a massive security clampdown, are continuing as French oil company Total Energies (TTEF.PA), opens new tab aims to restart a $20 billion liquefied natural gas terminal in Cabo Delgado in the coming months. The project was halted in 2021 after a deadly Islamic State-linked attack in a town near it.

Recent attacks include a deadly skirmish on Feb. 9 that claimed the lives of up to 25 Mozambique Defence Armed Force soldiers, according to local media reports, a significant blow to government efforts to quell violence during an election year.

On Tuesday a senior government official said just over 67,000 people had fled attacks in recent weeks, many displaced to neighboring province Nampula and others to safer parts of Cabo Delgado. "What is particularly of concern to UNICEF is that the majority of these displaced people are women and children, more than two-thirds of the total when combined," Guy Taylor, UNICEF's Mozambique spokesperson said on Wednesday.

So far this year, 56 incidents of insurgent-led aggression have been recorded, said Tertius Jacobs, head analyst for Mozambique at risk management firm Focus Group. "So, only two months into the year and we've already had more than half of the number of attacks we've had for the whole of last year," he said. Insurgents were attacking civilian targets such as churches and homes and were posing a "significant risk" to a major highway route, EN1, which moves key commodities to Nacala port, Jacobs added.

Total Energies CEO Patrick Pouyanne has said the company was monitoring the situation to make sure it was safe before committing to restart operations.
"What I want to avoid is making the decision to bring people back and then being forced to evacuate them again," he said in early February during an announcement of 2023 annual results. The company declined to provide further comment on the latest attacks.

Mozambique's defense ministry did not respond to a request for comment.
ExxonMobil (XOM.N), which is mulling a separate LNG terminal in Cabo Delgado, said it was continuing to monitor security developments in the region and routinely liaises with the government to ensure safeguards, a spokesperson said.

Analysts expect the Rwandan army, which is mainly patrolling the energy hub zone in the north of Cabo Delgado, to expand its role once a regional Southern African military force ends its deployment to Mozambique in July."The insurgency is not near its end and the normalization narrative is driven by economic interests and not by realities in Cabo Delgado," said Jasmine Opperman, an extremism expert focused on southern Africa. "This is about organized chaos to create fear, to recruit and spread an Islamic extremism narrative," Opperman added.

Reporting by Manuel Mucari in Maputo Forrest Crellin in Paris Additional reporting and writing by Wendell Roelf, editing by Deepa Babington Editing by Olivia Kumwenda-Mtambo and Peter Graff

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