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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.

US says Russia's Wagner force eyes Mali as a route for war supplies.

Tuesday, May 23, 2023

Written by Aljazeera News

Categories: ASCF News

Comments: 0

Flag_of_the_Wagner_Group_(variant).svg

Russia’s Wagner mercenary force has attempted to hide efforts to obtain military equipment internationally for use in the war in Ukraine and is seeking to transit such supplies through Mali, the United States State Department said.

The private mercenary force, which is fighting alongside Russian troops in Ukraine, is willing to use false paperwork to ship military equipment through Mali, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters at a news briefing on Monday.

“We have been informed that Wagner is seeking to transit material acquisitions to aid Russia’s war through Mali and is willing to use false paperwork for these transactions,” Miller said.

“In fact, there are indications that Wagner has been attempting to purchase military systems from foreign suppliers, and route these weapons through Mali as a third party,” he said.

“We have not seen, as of yet, any indications that these acquisitions have been finalized or executed, but we are monitoring the situation closely.”

Miller added that the US has imposed sanctions on people and entities “across multiple continents” who have been found to “support Wagner’s military operations,” and Washington would have more to say soon on the attempt to ship equipment through Mali.

Earlier this month, the French parliament adopted a resolution calling on the European Union to formally declare the Wagner mercenary force a “terror group,” a move that followed after the US declared Wagner a “transnational criminal organization” in January.

Wagner and its entrepreneur owner Yevgeny Prigozhin have been repeatedly sanctioned by the US and EU for human rights abuses in Africa and for participating in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Western countries have also raised concerns over the activities of Wagner mercenaries in Mali.

Earlier this month, the UN Human Rights Office announced that a fact-finding report had concluded that there were “strong indications” that more than 500 people were killed in Mali by Malian troops and foreign military personnel — believed to be from Wagner — during an operation in March 2022 that took place over five days in Moura village in the country’s central Mopti region. Most of those killed were executed, the UN said.

“Witnesses reported seeing ‘armed white men’ who spoke an unknown language operating alongside the Malian forces and at times appearing to supervise operations,” the UN said in a statement.

“According to witnesses, Malian troops were rotated in and out of Moura daily, but the foreign personnel remained for the duration of the operation,” the UN said.

The UN said that at least 58 women and girls were raped or subjected to other forms of sexual violence during the operation.

“These are extremely disturbing findings,” UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said in the statement.

“Summary executions, rape, and torture during armed conflict amount to war crimes and could, depending on the circumstances, amount to crimes against humanity,” Turk said.

Mali’s military rulers and Russia have previously maintained that Wagner personnel in Mali are no mercenaries but trainers helping local troops with military equipment purchased from Russia.

Read the original article here

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