Gail Alexan­der

Af­ter the failed 1990 coup at­tempt in T&T and the at­tack on the US on Sep­tem­ber 11, 2001–the 13th an­niver­sary of which is to­day–the Caribbean's sit­u­a­tion where the growth of Is­lam­ic fun­da­men­tal­ism and threat of ter­ror­ism is con­cerned has re­mained as high a sub­ject of scruti­ny as else­where in the world.

The ar­gu­ments on the re­li­gious as­pects of the Is­lam­ic is­sue have ranged far and wide for years, even cen­turies, ar­gue some lead­ers of T&T's Mid­dle East-de­scend­ed so­ci­ety, and the west­ern pres­ence over decades has fur­ther fu­elled the de­bate.And some say the ac­tion by some in­ter­na­tion­al quar­ters has con­tin­ued the frag­men­ta­tion of the Mid­dle East­ern land­scape, with all its reper­cus­sions on the West.

A re­cent T&T se­cu­ri­ty re­port on the is­sue has said, for in­stance: "The pro­found chasm be­tween the Sun­nis and the Shi'ites, or even the clash be­tween the mod­er­ates and fun­da­men­tal­ists, both need ex­plo­ration."The re­port con­clud­ed that the strug­gle in the Is­lam­ic world has im­pli­ca­tions for the rest of the globe.

Any as­sess­ment on per­cep­tion of grow­ing threats to T&T and Caribbean would have to con­sid­er, among oth­er fac­tors, geopol­i­tics and eco­nom­ic in­ter­ests of key glob­al play­ers, T&T's en­er­gy econ­o­my and re­li­gio-di­rec­tions in the re­gion, as well as sit­u­a­tions in Latin Amer­i­ca and neigh­bour­ing is­lands.T&T, Guyana and Suri­name have the largest Mus­lim pop­u­la­tions. Guyana and Suri­name have been mem­bers of the Or­gan­i­sa­tion of Is­lam­ic Con­fer­ence since the 1990s.

Sau­di-born Ad­nan El Shukri­jumah, whose fa­ther is Guyanese, re­mains on the US's 2014 Coun­tert­er­ror­ism Cal­en­dar for Al Qae­da in­volve­ment and ac­tiv­i­ties. The US had sought him since 2002 af­ter he passed through T&T and Cana­da be­tween 2001 and 2006 af­ter vis­its to Pana­ma and Hon­duras in 2001 and 2004.Known to hold T&T, US and Cana­di­an pass­ports, he en­tered T&T on a Guyanese pass­port for a "six-day stay with friends," and stayed in cen­tral Trinidad, where he had ties to an Is­lam­ic in­sti­tute.

His Guyanese fa­ther, Gul­shair, brought the fam­i­ly to live in T&T in the mid-1980s, when he taught in mosques. Fam­i­ly mem­bers now live in South Flori­da.A US$5 mil­lion re­ward is still out for El Shukri­jumah, de­scribed in 2010 as Al Qae­da's op­er­a­tions head. Ques­tions on the is­sue to T&T's US Em­bassy didn't re­ceive a re­ply.

Al Qae­da, now un­der pres­sure to re­claim its sta­tus fol­low­ing the emer­gence of the Is­lam­ic State of Iraq and Syr­ia (Isis), al­so known as Isil (Is­lam­ic State of Iraq and the Lev­ant), dis­closed last week it would open units in In­dia.T&T's record in var­i­ous re­ports have al­so cit­ed the his­to­ry of fun­da­men­tal­ism here with the failed 1990 coup at­tempt and ex­tra­di­tion to the US of T&T and Guyanese na­tion­als on ter­ror­ism charges, as well as ar­rest of oth­er T&T na­tion­als in the US on gun and bomb­ing plot charges.

T&T's pro­file has al­so been marked since 2002 by in­creas­ing gangs, aid­ed by US de­por­tee sta­tis­tics, guns and drug turf wars. Gov­ern­ment's Life Sport pro­gramme, halt­ed by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar af­ter rev­e­la­tions of mis­use by crim­i­nal el­e­ments, has now been added to the pro­file.

The foiled at­tack by a group in New York on the JFK Air­port's fu­el sys­tem in­creased con­cerns about the grow­ing pres­ence of rad­i­cal Is­lam­ic groups in the south­ern Caribbean, since three of the four charged came from Guyana and the oth­er from Trinidad, and were Mus­lim con­verts show­ing the sus­cep­ti­bil­i­ty of some to the in­flu­ence of rad­i­cal Is­lam­ic strains.

Eye on Caribbean

In­tel­li­gence re­ports note the re­gion­al pres­ence of cer­tain high pro­file Mid­dle East fun­da­men­tal­ist groups in var­i­ous South Amer­i­can ter­ri­to­ries, in­clud­ing Mar­gari­ta, and their in­volve­ment in var­i­ous as­pects of the un­der­ground "econ­o­my", or­gan­ised trans-na­tion­al crime. At least one re­port states some have been known to trav­el to Trinidad un­der false doc­u­ments.

Ex­perts con­firm that any Is­lam­ic fun­da­men­tal­ism and/or ter­ror­ist ac­tiv­i­ty in the re­gion will more than like­ly have con­nec­tions to what may be oc­cur­ring in the Mid­dle East. They al­so note that if cul­prits at­tempt to use the Caribbean for a hide­away or to ob­tain fi­nan­cial sup­port through il­lic­it ac­tiv­i­ties, this would usu­al­ly oc­cur near fol­low­ers of the re­li­gion.

Mus­lims are es­ti­mat­ed to com­prise about eight or nine per cent of T&T's pop­u­la­tion, with healthy mem­ber­ships in var­i­ous or­gan­i­sa­tions and a ma­jor­i­ty of mod­er­ates, though an in­creas­ing fun­da­men­tal­ist strip of fringe el­e­ments in re­cent decades.A re­port on the sit­u­a­tion added that T&T is the on­ly Caribbean coun­try where rad­i­cal Is­lam has been in the open since the 1980s.

The Ja­maat al-Mus­limeen was de­scribed as be­ing formed in the mid-1980s. The as­sess­ment not­ed oth­er small groups in T&T in­volv­ing con­verts, in­clud­ing named fig­ures de­scribed as ex­trem­ists.Con­cern was ex­pressed about re­cruit­ment among the poor and trav­el of some be­tween T&T and cer­tain Mid­dle East­ern lo­ca­tions, as well as the court­ing in re­cent years of var­i­ous Afro-Caribbean sec­tors by lead­ers of Mid­dle East ter­ror­ist groups.

Var­i­ous agen­cies have cred­it­ed T&T's law en­force­ment fra­ter­ni­ty with keep­ing ter­ror­ism at bay thus far. Al­so, an ad­vanced pas­sen­ger in­for­ma­tion sys­tem and mar­itime/air­space co­op­er­a­tion agree­ments have fa­cil­i­tat­ed cap­ture of sev­er­al peo­ple on in­ter­na­tion­al watch lists at­tempt­ing to en­ter the re­gion.

Rec­om­men­da­tions have been em­pha­sised, in­clud­ing the need to strength­en the lev­el of mi­gra­tion and bor­der se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns in sev­er­al ar­eas like the south west­ern penin­su­la, plus in­creased mon­i­tor­ing and sur­veil­lance sys­tems, par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cern­ing ar­rivals at ports of en­try.

Deep­en­ing of co-or­di­na­tion, agree­ments and re­sources among re­gion­al states and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners on the is­sue has al­so been un­der­scored, as well as at­ten­tion on un­der­stand­ing the pres­ence of var­i­ous Mid­dle East rad­i­cal groups in and around Latin Amer­i­ca and their abil­i­ty to en­ter states, in­clud­ing T&T, via false doc­u­ments.

T&T Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials said em­pha­sis is al­so be­ing placed on strength­en­ing leg­is­la­tion, counter-ter­ror­ism ca­pac­i­ty build­ing and mon­i­tor­ing the trans­port of goods, as well as in­tel­li­gence shar­ing.