Terrorists develop island operations: concerned government officials say terrorist groups have secured a beachhead in Trinidad and Tobago that soon could be used to target U.S. and British interests

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Jan 7, 2003 | by Scott L. Wheeler

Baksh warns, "The ruling PNM ... has been compromised by its unholy alliance with known terrorists and insurrectionists." He and other critics insist that Manning courted Jamaat al-Muslimeen in hopes of securing support from the nation's growing Muslim minority, now 15 percent of the total population. Baksh asks, "How can the PNM government solve crime when it is in bed with the extremist and known criminal elements?"

INSIGHT obtained a Trinidad telephone number for Jamaat al-Muslimeen and attempted to speak with Bakr. After this magazine placed repeated calls and spoke with three different people, a male leader of the group who refused to identify himself answered several questions, then began shouting and abruptly slammed down the receiver. Asked about Jamaat al-Muslimeen terrorist activities in Trinidad he denied that there were any. When asked about the 1990 coup attempt staged by the group, he responded, "I don't know anything about that. I was in the U.S. at the time." Asked about the Islamic Front and Umar Abdullah, he responded: "I know very little about him; he's a little upstart."

While INSIGHT was unable to track down Abdullah or anyone from the Islamic Front for comment, the voice speaking for Jamaat al-Muslimeen confirmed vigorous proselytizing in Trinidad, explaining, "One of the tenets of Islam is to propagate the faith." When asked if jihadists and other Muslim extremists were responsible for the spike in murder and kidnapping in Trinidad, he responded, "That crime belongs to poverty."

Baksh, the Muslim senator, says "During the holy month of Ramadan we had a significant reduction in murder and kidnapping, and it is not insignificant that after the holy month we once again saw a spike" in criminal activity.

Meanwhile, U.S. sources claim to be unclear about whether the suspected terrorist cells in Trinidad will mobilize and pose a direct threat to citizens inside the United States. In October, Trinidad immigrant Shueyb Mossa Jokhan was sentenced to "nearly five years in federal prison for a terrorist bombing plot," according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

The report said that Jokhan pleaded guilty to "conspiring to bomb electrical transformers and the Israeli Consulate in Miami." The plan reportedly was "hatched in a Florida mosque" and involved a Pakistani immigrant who recruited Jokhan for the attack, but law-enforcement sources tell INSIGHT they have been unable to connect the foiled Florida attack to the Islamic Front in Trinidad.

Trinidad and Tobago is in the southern Caribbean just a few miles off the coast of troubled Venezuela [see "Chavez Plans for Terrorist Regime," p. 22]. The island nation has been independent of the British Commonwealth since 1962.

SCOTT L. WHEELER IS A REPORTER FOR Insight.