Caribbean police chiefs meet in Port-of-Spain today to discuss current threats to the region, including the emergence of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's (Isis).
The meeting and subject content of the Caricom Commissioners of Police Association were confirmed by security sector officials including National Security Minister Gary Griffith.
Following recent attacks in France on the satirical Charlie Hebdo magazine, European authorities in various countries raided European radical Islamic cells with focus on people returning to those states from fighting with Isis.
The latter's 30,000 strong foreign terrorist mercenary corps–which names T&T nationals, includes others from Europe, the UK, US, Austria, Africa and Australia. Similar focus has been placed in the US on monitoring returning US nationals who fought with Isis. The US senate, however, is stalled on proposals to strip returning US Isis fighters of their US citizenship.
Isis' latest western victim last week was Japanese national Haruna Yukiwa who was beheaded. The mother of second Japanese hostage Kenji Goto yesterday pleaded for his life. This followed the murder of US and UK hostages since last year.
Griffith is on record as saying there are approximately 12 nationals, mainly from local crime gangs who have left T&T to fight with Isis. He said apart from tracking that situation authorities are stepping up focus on people locally who are aiding and abetting the terrorists.
He said the US resolution signed last year had assisted authorities to track nationals beyond Turkey, the last point where agencies were once able to monitor them before they entered Syria to get transport to Isis. Networking with allies now allows a wider scope on the situation.
Griffith said on Sunday: "This has opened the doors for allies to give us information so we can block returning culprits or gather evidence of arrest if they enter T&T. Our job is to turn T&T from a soft to a hard target.
The recently-formed counter terrorism and Special Operations Units are specially geared to issues in this area and obtaining human intelligence from citizens which the Counter Trafficking Unit is particularly geared to accommodate. There are people aiding and abetting nationals to join Isis and they need to be monitored."
Terrorism financing has also been the focus of recent meetings of the Caribbean Action Task Force with T&T agencies, the T&T Guardian learned.
At the last meeting of the Police Commissioners' Association in T&T last April US Assistant Secretary of State (International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs) William Brownfield reiterated the Caribbean was a critical trans-shipment point for drugs entering North America from South America. He said illicit products coming through the Caribbean to the US was 16 per cent in 2013. He said regional narco-trafficking would likely worsen before it got better and urged dialogue and co-operation among partners.