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.

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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.

Chad’s President Dies After Battle With Rebels, Military Says

Tuesday, April 20, 2021

Categories: ASCF News Terrorism

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Idriss Déby, who ruled the oil-producing nation of Chad for three decades, died Tuesday after sustaining injuries in clashes between rebels and government troops, the country’s military announced.

In a statement read on state television, military spokesman Gen. Azem Bermandoa Agouma said Mr. Déby, 68 years old, was injured in a battle with rebels advancing on the capital from the country’s northern border with Libya.

The announcement of his death, which couldn’t immediately be verified independently, came a day after Mr. Déby, a key ally of Chad’s former colonial power France and the U.S. in the fight against Boko Haram militants, was declared the winner of a contested April 11 presidential election. According to the official results, he won 79% of the vote.

“The president of the republic, the head of state, the supreme leader of the armed forces, Idriss Déby Itno, has just taken his final breath while defending the territorial integrity on the battlefield,” Gen. Bermandoa said.

Over the weekend, the U.S. State Department ordered all nonessential staff of its embassy in Chad to leave the country, citing the advancement of rebels from the north toward the capital, N’Djamena.

The fighting in Chad is a sign of how conflict in neighboring Libya has created instability in the broader region. Rebels from the Front for Change and Concord in Chad, or FACT, are based in Libya, but crossed into Chadian territory on election day.

The group was deployed at Jufra air base, a major military base controlled by Khalifa Haftar, a warlord backed by Russia and the United Arab Emirates who launched a 14-month assault on Libya’s internationally recognized government in 2019. Russia has also deployed paramilitary fighters and jet fighters to the same air base.

FACT has been expanding its presence in southern Libya and was guarding some of Mr. Haftar’s bases in the area, according to a report released in March by the United Nations Panel of Experts on Libya, which monitors military developments in the country. FACT’s leader claims neutrality in the Libyan conflict. The group’s fighters served in two of Mr. Haftar’s battalions, according to the report.

Mr. Haftar’s assault on Tripoli ended in 2020 and Libya’s rival factions formed a unity government in February 2021.

Photo: President Idriss Déby, pictured waving at a polling station on April 11, had been declared the winner of Chad’s recent election.
PHOTO: MARCO LONGARI/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE/GETTY IMAGES

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/chads-president-dies-after-battle-with-rebels-military-says-11618921935

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