Free Republic

Caribbean: Islamic radicalism on the rise? POLICE used an excavator to dig up the floor of an office adjoining a mosque near Port of Spain, Trinidad's capital, in a search for weapons. The dig was fruitless, but elsewhere in the mosque complex they found a gun, a grenade and ammunition. On November 11th they charged the mosque's imam, Yasin Abu Bakr, with firearms offences. He already faced charges of sedition and a retrial for conspiracy to murder. Six other mosques were raided, though nothing more was found. Rather than Islamic terrorism, Trinidad would seem to be facing a simple crime...

"Suspicious" substances and literature found in the luggage of a Muslim man about to take a flight to London from Tobago have triggered an international terror investigation. The probe led police officers and their bomb-sniffing dogs to homes in rural Tabaquite and posh Gulf View, San Fernando. Using the power of search warrants, investigators seized a computer and telephone at the Tabaquite house on Friday night. The 26-year-old man detained by police is a Londoner who came to Trinidad two months ago and was staying with his paternal grandmother, who lives off the Torrib/ Tabaquite Road. Police said last night...

A deliberately set bomb blast has injured 13-2 critically-in the capitol of Trinidan and Tobago. A man was seen placing a parcel in a dumpster shortly before the container exploded.

According to a late BBC report, a bomb explosion in central Port-Of-Spain, Trinidad, has injured 13 people, two critically. It appears to bear the hallmarks of an Al-Qaeda attack, or at least one in sympathy with recent Islamist atrocities in London and elsewhere. With extensive Trinidad and Tobago experience, allow me to build a case for Islamo-fascism as the cause, even if local police aren't yet saying so.

Costa Rica, Nicaragua and Panama are on alert for the possible entry of suspected terrorist Adnan G. El Shukrijumah, after Honduran authorities warned that the 29-year old suspect, referred to by law enforcement sources as "the next Mohammed Atta," may be seeking to cross into one of the countries. Costa Rica is bordered on the north by Nicaragua and on the south by Panama. Shukrijumah, who is considered one of the FBI's "top 5" terrorist concerns, allegedly was spotted in Honduras on May 27 at a Tegucigalpa Internet cafe. "We found out that this man was in Tegucigalpa at the...

SCHOOL RIOT BRING SIR BACK By Richard Charan South Bureau Thursday, June 3rd 2004 Armed officers of the Guard and Emergency Branch clear the way to enter the gates of the San Fernando Secondary Comprehensive School yesterday to quell a violent disturbance by pupils over the transfer of their principal. Photo: TREVOR WATSON ARMED RIOT Squad police with sub-machine guns were called out to a secondary school yesterday to squash a violent protest by pupils angered over the transfer of their principal. Hundreds of pupils of the San Fernando Secondary Comprehensive School threw chairs and hurled racist remarks at teachers,...

Four Trinidadians have said US authorities questioned them about their contact with a suspected al-Qaeda operative after he visited T&T in 2001. Adnan G El Shukrijumah was named when US attorney general John Ashcroft warned of intelligence showing al-Qaeda plans for an attack against the United States. Large photos of El Shukrijumah and six others were displayed at a news conference in Washington on Wednesday. The Saudi native visited Trinidad for six days in May 2001 and stayed with Zainool Ali, who lives in Chaguanas. Ali and three others were questioned by US authorities in late 2003, they told AP....

"Let no child be left behind"; ... "It takes a village to raise a child"; ... "Quality time"; ... "Crime Stoppers." Each of the foregoing, unfortunate phrases is supposed by many to be an expression of progress, is as American as Enron and now is at home in - the West Indian Republic of Trinidad and Tobago? During our just-concluded annual visit to my wife's folks in Trinidad, my family was bombarded with warmed-over Americanisms on television. (While prosperous, tiny Tobago with its beautiful beaches is the preferred destination of tourists, 93 percent of the 1.3 million largely hardworking, hard-luck...

Government has been seriously considering a State of Emergency in Trinidad and Tobago, high-level officials said yesterday. They claim it has been on the agenda of Prime Minister Patrick Manning as chairman of the National Security Council, for the past few weeks. The State of Emergency was one of the major recommendations of the Ken Gordon Committee Report on Crime presented to Cabinet in May. A source said in recent weeks Government decision makers have been busy weighing the pros and cons of the move With six kidnappings for ransom last week, and a call by the San Juan and...

He is now among the most hunted men in America.But to his family in South Forida, Adnan Gulshair El'Shukri-jumah is the son who -- at the age of 8 -- took over as head of his home in Saudi Arabia in the absence of his missionary father.They describe him as a brother who loved to picnic in the desert outside Medina and enjoyed American movies but not America's permissive customs.Though the subject of a global manhunt for his suspected involvement in possible terrorist activities, family members say he was just a normal, good-natured young man who dreamed of a family...

Trinidad And Tobago Challenges U.K. Terrorism Warning By Peter Richards IPS Article Dated 1/23/2003 E-Mail This Article Printer-Friendly Version PORT OF SPAIN - The government is scrambling to undo damage done by a British travel advisory that warns ''there may be an increased terrorist threat'' in this Caribbean country. While Prime Minister Patrick Manning has been vehemently denying the advisory, which he says was inflated by false allegations from the political opposition, senior ministers are being dispatched to London, Washington and New York to lobby officials. Reaction to the warning, which was issued in December but only became an issue...

Ten years ago, a group of black Muslims tried to overthrow the democratically-elected government of the Caribbean twin-island state of Trinidad and Tobago. One-hundred-and-fourteen members of the Jamaat-al-Muslimeen group, mostly young black men, took over the island's parliament; held the prime minister and some other members of his cabinet hostage; and stormed the state-run television station. For many, inside and outside the Caribbean, the 27 July crisis came as a total shock. The English-speaking Caribbean islands had vowed, following the 1983 American-led invasion of Grenada, never to see democratically-elected structures topple ever again. Armed raid The crisis began with the...