In just the last two weeks, members of terror groups like Al Qaeda and ISIS allegedly took part in a number of deadly attacks in France, as well as the hacking of social media sites for U.S. Central Command, based out of Tampa's MacDill Air Force Base.
The growing reach of these extremist groups is the subject of a conference taking place Thursday at the University of South Florida.Doctor Mohsen Milani, the Executive Director of the USF Center for Strategic and Diplomatic Studies, says the conference will focus on extremism in the Middle East and how it's effecting the policies of the U.S. and many other countries.
"I think the events in France have shown that we can no longer thing of ourselves living in isolated areas. Extremism has become a global challenge and in order to defeat it, not only do we have to understand it, but we have to create an international coalition against the extremists," Milani said.
Among those scheduled to speak are Admiral Mark Fox, the Deputy Commander of U.S. Centcom, as well as Christopher Hill, the former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq.
The daylong conference starts at 8:45 Thursday morning at the Patel Center for Global Solutions on USF's Tampa campus. The event is free and open to the public.