SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

15 mem­bers of Rio Claro imam Naz­im Mo­hammed’s fam­i­ly mem­bers–in­clud­ing his son, grand­chil­dren and in-laws–who went to the Is­lam­ic State to be­come ISIS fight­ers are like­ly dead.

Since se­cret­ly leav­ing Trinidad be­tween 2015 and 2018 to join the ex­trem­ist group, Mo­hammed has not re­ceived any word from his rel­a­tives, he said.

The 15 were part of a group of 19 men, women and chil­dren who en­tered Syr­ia and Iraq il­le­gal­ly as ji­hadists but were caught.

“You could imag­ine three 0’clock in the morn­ing I get a phone call from my grand­son who was held by the Iraq au­thor­i­ties in­di­cat­ing all who get killed. This one get killed and that one get killed,” Mo­hammed, 82, lament­ed as he spoke to the Sun­day Guardian re­cent­ly.

Mo­hammed said on­ly his 58-old year daugh­ter, Aneesa Mo­hammed-Wa­heed, and three of her daugh­ters–Aidah, 23, Az­izah, 32 and Sabi­rah, 29–are alive.

These four women are each serv­ing 20-year sen­tences in Iraqi camps for il­le­gal en­try in­to that coun­try.

Aneesa’s hus­band, Daud Wa­heed, 61, to­geth­er with his daugh­ters’ three hus­bands, Shuab Ha­sib, Cur­tis Rapsey Williams and Umar Rab­by Ku­mar, can­not be found.

In 2018, the US Trea­sury De­part­ment black­list­ed an­oth­er one of Wa­heed’s sons-in-law Em­raan Ali, 56, and Ed­die Ale­ong, a na­tion­al, on sus­pi­cion of fi­nanc­ing ISIS. Ali, a fi­nancier of ISIS, was mar­ried to an­oth­er one of Mo­hammed’s grand­daugh­ters Shalo­ma who both went to Syr­ia in 2015. Five years lat­er, no one knows where the Alis are.

In­sist­ing that his loved ones did not in­form him of their plans to join ISIS, Mo­hammed said he had no per­son­al con­nec­tion to the ter­ror group.

Mo­hammed said Aneesa–his first­born, her hus­band, Daud, and their three daugh­ters, Aidah, Az­izah and Sabi­rah along with their hus­bands were the first to go to Iraq.

All eight were caught en­ter­ing Iraq il­le­gal­ly, and Aneesa and her daugh­ters were sep­a­rat­ed from their hus­bands.

Du­ad was sup­posed to face a tri­al in a Bagh­dad court, but Mo­hammed said he was un­sure if this ever took place.

“That was the last time they (men) were seen. No­body can ac­count for them. The In­ter­na­tion­al Red Cross checked all over, and they could not find them.”

Mo­hammed be­lieves the four men were ex­e­cut­ed.

In Iraq, the death penal­ty is im­posed on peo­ple found guilty of ter­ror­ism, mur­der, trea­son, es­pi­onage and war crimes. Hang­ing is the com­mon method of ex­e­cu­tion.

Mo­hammed said with his daugh­ter and grand­daugh­ters im­pris­oned, Daud’s son Ma­sood, his wife, and their twin daugh­ters al­so went to Syr­ia, but they too have not been lo­cat­ed.

Among those who have al­so gone miss­ing in Syr­ia are Mo­hammed’s grand­daugh­ter Sumiyah, her hus­band Akeil and their 14-year-old son, Samir. He feared the worst as the death penal­ty in Syr­ia is usu­al­ly car­ried out by hang­ing.

Mo­hammed said his son Musab Mo­hammed fol­lowed his sis­ter (Aneesa) but was picked up by Iraqi forces af­ter he tried to sneak in­to the coun­try.

Musab was ac­com­pa­nied by his wife, Cassie Bis­soon-Mo­hammed. They too have dis­ap­peared. “We heard Musab was ex­e­cut­ed,” Mo­hammed said.

Un­told sad­ness and pain

Mo­hammed was mar­ried to two women who have de­part­ed. His first wife, Sal­i­ma Mo­hammed, 78, who gave birth to five chil­dren, died of a mas­sive heart at­tack three years ago. She was Aneesa and Musab’s moth­er. His sec­ond wife, who gave birth to two chil­dren, died of health com­pli­ca­tions in 2015.

The fa­ther of sev­en said the im­pris­on­ment of Aneesa and his three grand­daugh­ters brought Sal­i­ma un­told sad­ness and pain.

“As a hu­man be­ing and moth­er, you would grieve…it would hurt you.”

He said Sal­i­ma was ripped to pieces when she re­ceived the trag­ic news that her son Musab had been ex­e­cut­ed. Mo­hammed could not give a pre­cise month or year when they got the news.

Musab, he said, was Sal­i­ma’s pride and joy. “She loved her son to death.”

Mo­hammed came to the con­clu­sion that Musab’s death could have tak­en Sal­i­ma pre­ma­ture­ly to her grave as she ag­o­nised over his killing.

Asked how he found out about the fam­i­ly mem­bers, Mo­hammed said the Is­lam­ic State au­thor­i­ties did not in­form them. “We got in­for­ma­tion from in­side,” and al­so from his grand­son Ma­sood who al­so can­not be ac­count­ed for.

A count showed that the where­abouts of 15 of Mo­hammed’s rel­a­tives are un­known. He said none of the 19 rel­a­tives who left were trained as ISIS fight­ers.

“None of them were found in any bat­tle­field. They were just in the coun­try il­le­gal­ly.”

Mo­hammed, who heads the Masjid Umar Ibn Khat­tab Ja­maat in Boos Vil­lage, Rio Claro, shot in­to the spot­light in 2016 when he ve­he­ment­ly de­nied be­ing an ISIS re­cruiter.

He first came un­der the radar in 2009 when he was in­ter­viewed by FBI agents pri­or to T&T host­ing the Fifth Sum­mit of the Amer­i­c­as.

The agents want­ed to know if Mo­hammed was a threat to then-Amer­i­can pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma dur­ing his at­ten­dance at the sum­mit.

Mo­hammed be­came a tar­get by the po­lice who searched his mosque for arms and am­mu­ni­tion but came up emp­ty-hand­ed.

Mo­hammed con­soles him­self:

This is Al­lah’s pro­gramme

In his sea of loss, Mo­hammed con­soled him­self say­ing, “This is Al­lah’s pro­gramme. You see, we are Mus­lims and we be­lieve every­thing hap­pens by the will of Al­lah. If they have to die there or come back here all of that rests in the hands of Al­lah.

“When­ev­er some­thing hap­pens to us as Mus­lims, we say Al­ham­dulil­lah (praise to Al­lah). It hap­pened by the will of Al­lah.”

Mo­hammed said he strong­ly be­lieves in Akhi­rah–life af­ter death.

He said be­liev­ing in the af­ter­life en­cour­ages Mus­lims to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their ac­tions.

“In this world, it is just a pass­ing through. We will die one day, and we have to re­turn to our Lord. We have to give God an ac­count. There is a day of judg­ment, this is not the re­al life.”

He said Aneesa and her three daugh­ters have re­peat­ed­ly writ­ten the Gov­ern­ment of T&T ask­ing to re­turn home but nev­er got a re­sponse. They have al­so penned let­ters to the Unit­ed Na­tions.  

The four women use the In­ter­na­tion­al Red Cross to send their let­ters.

“The Red Cross would vis­it them in their camps in Iraq. The last let­ter I got was sev­er­al months ago. They com­plained that dur­ing win­ter the weath­er was very dif­fi­cult for them as they are not pro­vid­ed with any woolen cloth­ing and had to fend for them­selves.”

Mo­hammed said he knows one day he will meet Aneesa and his grand­daugh­ters in the af­ter­life.

“I am old now. I don’t have long again.”

Bring back na­tion­als home

Mo­hammed plead­ed with the Gov­ern­ment to help bring back his daugh­ter and grand­daugh­ters and oth­er na­tion­als locked in two camps in North­east Syr­ia.

“All our na­tion­als are in the same po­si­tion,” Mo­hammed said.

Of the 99 de­tained in camps in Syr­ia, 56 are chil­dren while 21 are women.

On March 7, Hu­man Rights Watch (HRW) counter-ter­ror­ism as­so­ci­a­tion di­rec­tor Let­ta Tayler dis­closed the num­ber of T&T na­tion­als de­tained in Syr­ia at the launch of its 2023 re­port en­ti­tled “T&T: Bring Home Na­tion­als from Syr­ia” dur­ing a press con­fer­ence.

Tayler said most of the women and chil­dren were vic­tims of ISIS and had not com­mit­ted any crimes.

She dis­closed that chil­dren have died in tent fires, drowned in sewage pits, and killed by wa­ter trucks. Hun­dreds have al­so died from treat­able ill­ness­es.

Mo­hammed said these de­tainees de­serve to be free be­cause of the life-threat­en­ing con­di­tions they are forced to live in.

Re­spond­ing to the HRW, For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Dr Amery Browne said the Gov­ern­ment has been work­ing on repa­tri­at­ing our na­tion­als.

How­ev­er, Browne was un­able to say ex­act­ly when that process will be­gin.

The 15 feared dead:

Musab Mo­hammed and his wife Cassie Bis­soon-Mo­hammed (2)

Du­ad Mo­hammed (1)

Shuab Ha­sib (1)

Cur­tis Rapsey Williams (1)

Umar Rab­by Ku­mar (1)

Em­raan Ali and his wife Shalo­ma (2)

Samir (1)

Ma­sood Mo­hammed, his wife and their twin daugh­ters (4)

Akiel (1)

Sumiyah (1)