SHANE SU­PERVILLE

Se­nior Re­porter

While he was un­able to an­swer any ques­tions re­lat­ing to a height­ened se­cu­ri­ty alert at the U.S. Em­bassy, Min­is­ter of De­fence Wayne Sturge in­sists that the pub­lic should not wor­ry.

On Sat­ur­day, the Em­bassy—through its of­fi­cial Face­book ac­count—urged U.S. cit­i­zens on the is­land to avoid vis­it­ing U.S. gov­ern­ment fa­cil­i­ties. The post al­so ad­vised them to “be aware of their sur­round­ings” and to “re­port any sus­pi­cious ac­tiv­i­ty to lo­cal au­thor­i­ties.”

Re­spond­ing to Guardian Me­dia’s ques­tions via What­sApp on Sun­day, Min­is­ter Sturge de­clined to com­ment on the na­ture of the threat or se­cu­ri­ty con­cerns sur­round­ing U.S. gov­ern­ment fa­cil­i­ties, or whether it was linked to con­tin­ued U.S. mil­i­tary op­er­a­tions off the coast of Venezuela.

“The re­main­ing ques­tions can­not be an­swered at this time for ob­vi­ous rea­sons, but all will be re­vealed at the ap­pro­pri­ate time,” Min­is­ter Sturge said.

Oth­er ques­tions di­rect­ed at the De­fence Min­is­ter in­clud­ed whether any units or for­ma­tions of the T&T De­fence Force were placed on alert or mo­bilised, and whether any branch­es of the U.S. mil­i­tary had re­quest­ed to come to T&T.