Gail Alexan­der

The state has in­for­ma­tion that over 400 T&T na­tion­als - men, women and chil­dren - have gone to Syr­ia and un­der­gone mil­i­tary train­ing and in­doc­tri­na­tion with the Is­lam­ic State (Isis) and have been rad­i­calised, Op­po­si­tion MP Roodal Mooni­lal re­vealed yes­ter­day.

"Gov­ern­ment has in­for­ma­tion on the most sig­nif­i­cant se­cu­ri­ty threat fac­ing T&T and our gen­er­a­tion - the threat of Isis in­fil­trat­ing the Caribbean and T&T. What are you do­ing about it?" Mooni­lal asked in Par­lia­ment.

Speak­ing dur­ing de­bate on leg­is­la­tion to amend the Strate­gic Ser­vices Agency (SSA) to deep­en lo­cal in­tel­li­gence ca­pa­bil­i­ties, Mooni­lal chal­lenged Gov­ern­ment to com­ment on in­for­ma­tion com­ing to hand that Gov­ern­ment has re­ceived in­tel­li­gence on the stock­pil­ing of weapons in T&T and threats to the State.

"What are you do­ing with it - act on it the in­tel­li­gence," he said.

Mooni­lal held up a thick sheaf of doc­u­ments to sup­port his rev­e­la­tions. The Oropouche East MP not­ed that last Fri­day in Par­lia­ment, Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley had ac­knowl­edged some T&T na­tion­als had gone to Syr­ia where Isis was ac­tive and have re­turned and are now un­der sur­veil­lance.

He called on Gov­ern­ment to say what was be­ing done on poli­cies to han­dle such re­turn­ing na­tion­als. He in­di­cat­ed one op­tion was cre­at­ing crim­i­nal of­fences to charge peo­ple in­volved in fi­nanc­ing such trav­el. He not­ed that T&T had once banned Stoke­ly Carmichael and CLR James for ide­ol­o­gy.

Call­ing for in­ves­ti­ga­tion of the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion and poli­cies to deal with it, he said peo­ple who have gone to Isis and be­come in­doc­tri­nat­ed and rad­i­calised pose a clear and present dan­ger to the state.

The T&T Guardian has al­so ob­tained part of a file - 50 pages long - from a top-lev­el po­lice agency, which lists "T&T cit­i­zens who have left the coun­try and jour­neys to Syr­ia which align them­selves with the Is­lam­ic State ter­ror­ist group".

The file fea­tures the names, sex, date of birth, last known lo­cal ad­dress of each per­son and date of their de­par­ture, date of ar­rival, their sta­tus (whether con­firmed in Syr­ia) and a pho­to­graph of them. De­par­tures range be­tween 2013 and 2015. The list com­pris­es 32 males, 30 fe­males and 40 chil­dren.

The adult males in this list­ing are large­ly of Afro T&T de­scent be­tween the ages of 30 to the 50s.

The women–most wear­ing hi­jabs –are al­so large­ly of Afro T&T de­scent, bear­ing Mus­lim names and rang­ing age be­tween the 30 to 40 age group. The chil­dren, how­ev­er, range in ages from two years to 16 years. This list com­pris­es boys and girls, some mere tots, and ba­bies.

Some of the adults are de­scribed as be­ing af­fil­i­at­ed to Rio Claro and En­ter­prise mosques.

The list starts with Shane Do­minic Craw­ford, aka Ab­dul­lah, whose ad­dress was list­ed as Waller­field. It states his sta­tus was "con­firmed as be­ing in Syr­ia."

An­tho­ny Ham­let, of Rio Claro, who was con­firmed as be­ing in Syr­ia, was list­ed as hav­ing died in bat­tle.

One Clint Craw­ford, of Cunu­pia, was list­ed as be­ing in Egypt, "but went to Syr­ia and un­der­went jid­hadist train­ing."

The list stat­ed Al­ger­non Fa­reed Mustapha was con­firmed in Syr­ia "and died in bat­tle in the sec­ond week of Ju­ly 2015".

Al­so de­scribed as be­ing "killed in bat­tle" is Sean Bartholomew, aka "Shabazz", of Low­er San­ta Cruz. He left for Syr­ia via Suri­name.

Os­aya­ba Abay­o­mi Ab­dul­lah Muhammed, of Bel­mont, was list­ed as de­part­ing for Syr­ia via Lon­don with un­con­firmed re­ports of be­ing "killed in bat­tle."

Shawn Par­sons, of D'abadie, was list­ed as re­port­ed­ly killed al­so. Tick­et in­for­ma­tion was that he passed through Lon­don, Dubai and Mani­la to reach Syr­ia.

Tariq Ab­dul Haqq, of Arou­ca, was list­ed as de­part­ing for Syr­ia via Bar­ba­dos and was "re­port­ed­ly killed."

A Co­coyea Vil­lage, San Fer­nan­do man was list­ed as be­ing in Egypt, "from where he is ex­pect­ed to trav­el to Syr­ia via Turkey." An Aranguez man was list­ed as re­port­ed­ly be­ing in Syr­ia hav­ing ini­tial­ly left for Egypt.

The list in­clud­ed three Cen­tral women - a moth­er and two daugh­ters - de­scribed as hav­ing re­turned to T&T af­ter be­ing de­tained at a refugee camp in Turkey. (That group was fea­tured in me­dia re­ports re­cent­ly).

A Cha­gau­nas woman was list­ed as be­ing de­port­ed from Venezuela and be­ing de­tained since 2014, but who was al­so con­firmed as "be­ing in Syr­ia,"

Among the chil­dren, one Cunu­pia eight-year-old of East In­di­an de­scent was be­lieved to be in the UK," hav­ing tran­sit­ed through Cu­ra­cao".

A sim­i­lar de­scrip­tion was giv­en for a 26-year-old from Cunu­pia and a 10-year-old East In­di­an girl of Cunu­pia, a six-year-old boy from the same place plus a cou­ple from Cunu­pia. Two Rio Claro chil­dren, ages five and two, were list­ed as hav­ing de­part­ed with a fe­male and male for Frank­furt, Ger­many, via To­ba­go and Bar­ba­dos with the fi­nal des­ti­na­tion "be­lieved to be Syr­ia via Turkey." The pic­tures show a chub­by, smil­ing ba­by and tod­dler. Sev­er­al oth­er cou­ples are de­scribed as tak­ing that same route al­so.

Two oth­er boys from Rio Claro were de­scribed as hav­ing de­part­ed to Ger­many via Bar­ba­dos with Turkey as the fi­nal des­ti­na­tion. A cou­ple is al­so list­ed with these lit­tle boys.

A 12-year-old boy of San­ta Cruz is list­ed as leav­ing for Syr­ia via Suri­name along with a four-year-old girl and two women.

A Ge­of­frey Street, Diego Mar­tin woman was con­firmed in Syr­ia, as was a Long­denville, Ch­agua­nas woman, an eight-year-old boy, 14-year-old youth and a six-year-old and sev­en-year-old, both of Rio Claro.

A Trinci­ty six-year-old was said to have de­part­ed to Syr­ia via Lon­don and a man of Mal­oney Gar­dens was list­ed as de­part­ing to Syr­ia via Cu­ra­cao. A woman and two boys from Trinci­ty was al­so list­ed as go­ing to Syr­ia via Lon­don.

A Rio Claro cou­ple and three-year-old boy went to Syr­ia via Guyana and a 13-year-old Long­denville boy is con­firmed as be­ing in Syr­ia.

A six-year-old boy was al­so con­firmed as hav­ing ar­rived in Turkey while a Cunu­pia cou­ple were al­so con­firmed as hav­ing ar­rived there along with two eight and sev­en-year-old boys.

A Don Miguel Road, San Juan man and two tots were al­so list­ed as head­ing to Syr­ia via Brazil, as well as an­oth­er cou­ple and sev­en-year-old boy from the same area, and Rio Claro cou­ples and chil­dren. An Ec­clesville, Rio Claro fam­i­ly of five was list­ed cross­ing the Turk­ish bor­der to Syr­ia.

Oth­ers list­ed as de­part­ed for Syr­ia were men, women and chil­dren from Mor­vant, adults from Ma­yaro and Rich­plain Road, Diego Mar­tin and a woman born in Sau­di Ara­bia whose TT ad­dress was Ma­yaro. Al­so list­ed were a Trou Macaque man, a Co­conut Dri­ve, Mor­vant man, plus men, women and boys from Pranz Gar­dens, Clax­ton Bay. Women and boys in that group de­part­ed via Pana­ma and Brazil. A tot and young­ster from Pe­tit Val­ley were al­so list­ed with adults.