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.

Syria government forces take major town south of Idlib city -war monitor

Tuesday, January 28, 2020

Categories: ASCF News Emerging Threats National Preparedness

Comments: 0

(Reuters) - Syrian government forces took control of a town south of Idlib city on Tuesday in a significant advance for President Bashar al-Assad as he seeks to recapture rebel-held territory in the country's northwest, a war monitor and state media said.

Assad's campaign to regain Idlib province, the last rebel bastion in a nearly nine-year-long civil war, has sparked a new exodus of thousands of civilians towards the border of Turkey, which backs some insurgent groups fighting Assad.

Syrian state broadcaster al-Ikhbariya said government forces entered Maarat al-Numan, 33 km (20 miles) south of Idlib city, on Tuesday and were combing its districts while advancing further into the town. The state news agency SANA said later the army had "liberated most of the town's districts".

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said via WhatsApp that government forces "took full control" of Maarat al-Numan, the second largest town in Idlib province, after entering it backed by Russian air strikes.

The renewed fighting comes despite a Jan. 12 ceasefire deal between Turkey and Russia, which back opposing sides of the conflict. Turkey already hosts more than 3.5 million Syrian refugees and fears millions more could soon cross the frontier.

Maarat al-Numan is located on the main highway in Idlib linking the capital Damascus with Aleppo in northern Syria.

Turkey's Defence Ministry said Turkish forces would retaliate "in the strongest way, without hesitation" against any attack on its observation posts in Idlib province by Assad's forces. (Reporting by Reuters team; Writing by Ghaida Ghantous; Editing by Mark Heinrich)

Photo: © ASSOCIATED PRESS Syrians drive through the city of al-Mastouma, in Idlib province, as they flee a government offensive, Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2020. Syrian government forces have been on the offensive for more than a month in the northwestern Idlib province, the last rebel stronghold in the country. But in recent days, the government captured more than a dozen villages in the area as the insurgents' defenses began to crumble. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)

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