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Friday, February 28, 2025

Rio Claro imam's daughter married to ISIS financier

by

Gail Alexander
2352 days ago
20180921
Iman Nazim Mohammed

Iman Nazim Mohammed

RISHI RAGOONATH

Rio Claro Imam Naz­im Mo­hammed says he hasn’t heard from his sec­ond daugh­ter’s hus­band Em­raan Ali, who has been des­ig­nat­ed by the Unit­ed States as an ISIS fi­nancier, since the cou­ple left for Syr­ia sev­er­al years ago.

Mo­hammed spoke about his son-in-law yes­ter­day af­ter the US De­part­ment of Trea­sury (US­DT) on Wednes­day said Ali and an­oth­er T&T na­tion­al, Ed­die Ale­ong, were des­ig­nat­ed as and sanc­tioned for be­ing fi­nanciers of the ISIS ter­ror net­work.

The US­DT said Ali, 51, car­ried dual US and T&T cit­i­zen­ship. He was des­ig­nat­ed for act­ing for/or on be­half of ISIS.

Ali was de­scribed as be­ing based in Syr­ia and as be­ing in­volved in mon­ey trans­fers from T&T to Syr­ia in sup­port of ISIS.

“As of Jan­u­ary 2017, Ali would re­ceive and pro­vide funds to Trinida­di­an ISIS fight­ers. For sev­er­al years, a num­ber of T&T cit­i­zens in Syr­ia re­ceived mon­ey trans­fers through Ali. In the sum­mer of 2015, Ali lived at an ISIS guest house in Syr­ia and had been as­signed to Raqqah, Syr­ia,” the US stat­ed on Wednes­day.

Ale­ong, 38, was said to be based in T&T. He was des­ig­nat­ed for as­sist­ing in, spon­sor­ing, or pro­vid­ing fi­nan­cial, ma­te­r­i­al, or tech­no­log­i­cal sup­port for, or fi­nan­cial or oth­er ser­vices to or in sup­port of ISIS.

The US said as of March 2018, T&T-based Ale­ong fa­cil­i­tat­ed mon­ey trans­fers to ISIS mem­bers in ISIS-con­trolled ter­ri­to­ry. As of Jan­u­ary 2017, a Trinida­di­an ISIS sup­port­er “pos­si­bly planned to work Ale­ong, to trans­fer funds to Em­raan Ali, who would then pro­vide the funds to Trinida­di­an ISIS fight­ers in Syr­ia.”

Ale­ong, of En­ter­prise, Ch­agua­nas, was among the 15 peo­ple held by po­lice in the Feb­ru­ary plot to dis­rupt Car­ni­val. He was among 13 even­tu­al­ly re­leased with­out charge.

T&T of­fi­cials said the mat­ter re­gard­ing the two was un­der “ac­tive man­age­ment” by the An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Unit of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al’s Of­fice.

Yes­ter­day, Imam Mo­hammed con­firmed Ali was mar­ried to one of his daugh­ters. He said they lived in Rio Claro for some time be­fore they left T&T for Syr­ia some­time be­fore 2015, but he couldn’t re­call ex­act­ly when.

“I don’t get no in­for­ma­tion on them, I don’t know where they are,” Mo­hammed said, de­clin­ing com­ment on the US’s des­ig­na­tion of Ali as an ISIS fi­nancier.

In 2015, Mo­hammed con­firmed that an­oth­er daugh­ter, Anisa, her hus­band Daoud and their three daugh­ters had gone to Syr­ia that year.

Last year, Hu­man Rights Watch group lo­cat­ed the women in an Iraqi de­ten­tion camp af­ter Iraqi forces de­tained large num­bers of ISIS fight­ers. The T&T women and the man had been sep­a­rat­ed. It was con­firmed it was Mo­hammed’s daugh­ter and her chil­dren.

In May, Anisa, 53 and her three daugh­ters (ages 23 to 32) were sen­tenced to 20 years’ jail each by a Bagh­dad court for en­ter­ing Turkey il­le­gal­ly and for ISIS ties.

Mo­hammed’s grand­daugh­ters called him from prison. They said their chil­dren - a to­tal of about sev­en chil­dren ages three to sev­en - were with them and they want­ed to come home. Mo­hammed says he be­lieved their fa­ther was ex­e­cut­ed.

Yes­ter­day, Mo­hammed said he had dropped let­ters to the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter ap­peal­ing for Gov­ern­ment as­sis­tance in bring­ing the women back

“I haven’t re­ceived re­ply,” he said.

How­ev­er, Mo­hammed said his fam­i­ly weren’t ISIS re­cruiters.

But Is­lam­ic Front leader Umar Ab­dul­lah yes­ter­day chal­lenged the US to present proof that Ali and Ale­ong were ISIS fi­nanciers.

“They must bring the proof be­cause I know bet­ter. When peo­ple left to go to Syr­ia they would have left fam­i­ly/friends be­hind and they would have want­ed help when they fell in­to hard­ship. What would ISIS want with small T&T mon­ey?

“I al­so sent mon­ey to a T&T woman I know who was in Syr­ia. But it doesn’t mean I was fi­nanc­ing ISIS. She reached out to me for help. I knew her very well - I sent her (US)$30. She’s still there - but peo­ple should fo­cus on T&T’s crime, not ter­ror­ism. If left un­at­tend­ed, crime will sky­rock­et.”


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