Gail Alexan­der

Re­porters from the New York Times and Al Jazeera are speak­ing to mem­bers of T&T's Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty fol­low­ing last week's news that 130 na­tion­als are in­volved in ter­ror­ist ac­tiv­i­ties in coun­tries abroad.

The up­dat­ed fig­ure was giv­en last Tues­day by Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Ed­mund Dil­lon fol­low­ing MSNBC com­men­ta­tor Mal­colm Nance's claim that the Is­lam­ic State ter­ror­ist net­work "has dozens of mem­bers from Brazil or Trinidad or the Ba­hamas, who have more ter­ror­ist mem­bers than any of the sev­en coun­tries" that are the sub­ject of an im­mi­gra­tion ban or­dered by Unit­ed States Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump.

Yes­ter­day, Is­lam­ic Front leader Umar Ab­dul­lah said New York Times re­porter Frances Rob­les, col­lab­o­rat­ing with Pri­or Be­har­ry, a for­mer me­dia/com­mu­ni­ca­tion of­fi­cial with the for­mer Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment, in­ter­viewed him on Sat­ur­day about T&T na­tion­als join­ing ter­ror­ist groups.

Ab­dul­lah said he gave his opin­ion of T&T, in­clud­ing Mus­lim ide­olo­gies and rad­i­cal teach­ings and told the re­porter he had moved away from rad­i­cal­ism though oth­ers had been in­flu­enced.

"I said I al­most joined Isis and was dis­trib­ut­ing in­for­ma­tion up to 2014- 2015 en­cour­ag­ing peo­ple to go (Syr­ia), but I didn't, as I felt Trinidad and To­ba­go's sit­u­a­tion need­ed ex­am­ples for our Mus­lims. I said we're a peace lov­ing group and want the best for Trinidad and To­ba­go.

"I said there aren't ter­ror­ist groups here, no ter­ror­ism fund­ing, but there may be in­di­vid­u­als in­flu­enc­ing that ide­ol­o­gy, though it won't grow and they'd leave for over­seas and won't re­turn to make prob­lems."

Ab­dul­lah said he spoke about those who had gone to Syr­ia, in­clud­ing Shane Craw­ford, who was among the first.

"I said most peo­ple held for the al­leged plot against the for­mer PP prime min­is­ter left for Syr­ia and while that may give the im­pres­sion of ne­far­i­ous ac­tiv­i­ties, I have the in­for­ma­tion that (the plot) was con­coct­ed."

Moth­er of Isis­fight­er in­ter­viewed

Craw­ford's moth­er Joan, said the New York Times team vis­it­ed her on Sat­ur­day.

"She asked what mosque or imam in­flu­enced him. I said my son was nev­er a fol­low­er and couldn't be brain­washed. I said if you hold some­one for an al­leged plot of that na­ture (against the for­mer prime min­is­ter) and they're not cleared and brand­ed ter­ror­ist, they may want to leave a coun­try.

"I showed them many cer­tifi­cates Shane re­ceived. He's bril­liant–UWI cours­es, com­put­ers, Ser­vol, po­lice good char­ac­ter cer­tifi­cate. He was build­ing com­put­ers since 2003."

Craw­ford said she hadn't heard from Shane since last Oc­to­ber.

"Once me­dia had re­port­ed Isis was killing Chris­tians and I asked him if that's true. He said when they go in­to a vil­lage, they give peo­ple choic­es: who want­ed to join Is­lam, stay as Chris­tians and pay a tax, who want­ed to leave or who want­ed to pick up am­mu­ni­tion.

Craw­ford said the re­porter asked her about her con­ver­sion to Is­lam.

"I said I did it be­fore he left be­cause of my own be­liefs," she said.

"She asked my opin­ion of Pres­i­dent Trump. I said I agreed with him on the ho­mo­sex­u­al is­sue."

Ra­dio an­nounc­er Ster­ling Hen­der­son said free­lance re­porter Amand­la Thomas-John­son is com­ing to T&T lat­er this month to do an Al Jazeera doc­u­men­tary, "The Shane Craw­ford Sto­ry".

At­lantic writer Si­mon Cot­tee, who did a re­cent ar­ti­cle on the is­sue, vis­it­ed T&T again last week.

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Min­is­ter in the Of­fice of the Prime Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said Gov­ern­ment is un­of­fi­cial­ly aware of the pres­ence of the New York Tines in the coun­try.

"As far as I'm aware, we've not yet been con­tact­ed. We would be pre­pared as a Gov­ern­ment, through Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty or the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al's of­fice, to en­gage in con­ver­sa­tions re­gard­ing the cur­rent is­sues which are at­tract­ing in­ter­na­tion­al at­ten­tion," he said.