Free Republic

The twin-island Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago would seem to be the last place to raise alarm bells over the threat of radical Islam. Trinidad was briefly catapulted into the spotlight in June 2007 when reports surfaced that one of the suspects linked to an alleged plot to attack New York City’s John F. Kennedy International Airport was a Trinidadian national and that the suspects reached out to Yasin Abu Bakr, the leader of Jamaat al-Muslimeen (JAM, Association of Muslims), for assistance in executing their plan. JAM is an enigmatic Trinidadian Muslim militant group that is implicated in violence,...

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...