News / Military
By Howard Altman / Tampa Bay Times / May 24, 2016
PHOTO: U.S. and international special operations forces demonstrate combat capabilities outside the Tampa Convention Center during a 2012 convention. (Times 2012)
TAMPA — A major annual conference that brings together special operations forces commanders and defense industry leaders kicked into high gear this morning at the Tampa Convention Center.
The Special Operations Forces Industry Conference began Monday but ramped up this morning with the opening of the exhibit hall, featuring commando-oriented goods and services from about 350 companies.
About 11,500 people, largely members of the special operations community and defense contractors, are expected to attend the annual conference, according to James “Hondo” Geurts, the acquisition executive for U.S. Special Operations Command. The command, headquartered at MacDill Air Force Base, has its own budget of several billion dollars a year to spend on buying goods and services and maintaining them.
The event also marks the biannual International Special Operations Forces conference, bringing together commandos from 80 nations. Also being held at the convention center, it is closed to the media except for key note speeches.
Tuesday morning, Lisa Monaco, assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, told the ISOF audience that commandos will continue to play a key role in the fight against violent extremists and that they would work together with partner nations building their ability to defend themselves.
And, increasingly, she noted that commandos have “a critical role in gathering intelligence against ISIL and combating the flow of foreign fighters to and from Syria and Iraq,” she said.
She also acknowledged that Pakistan and Afghanistan were only informed after the fact about the recent drone strike that killed Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour.
“The intent of our forces, intelligence and military forces, to undertake an operation against an individual who repeatedly and persistently plotted attacks against our forces in the region,” she said.
Tuesday morning also marked the opening of the exhibition floor, featuring a wide array of goods and services commandos might use.
From a souped up motocross bike, called the Motoped Survival Bike, which gets 200 miles per gallon, to robots that can detect IEDs and chemical, radiological and biologic weapons made by a company that spun off from the folks who brought you Roomba, the exhibition floor is crammed with gadgets, gear and services contractors hope to get into the hands of commandos.
The conference continues through Thursday.
This afternoon, SoCom commander, Army Gen. Raymond A. “Tony” Thomas III speaks and tomorrow, Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn will once again be captured in the biannual ISOF capabilities demonstration, in which an international contingent of commandos will swoop in under, and on the water, in the air and on the surface to “rescue” the mayor, as well as a folks on a boat in the harbor.
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