Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Stu­art Young said on Sunday that in­for­ma­tion in the pub­lic do­main about T&T na­tion­als who left to join ISIS must first be ver­i­fied but ac­knowl­edged that some of the ev­i­dence was dis­turb­ing.

He was re­spond­ing to a re­port car­ried by Amand­la Thomas-John­son in the Mid­dle East Eye (MEE). Young said the min­istry was scru­ti­n­is­ing all da­ta to en­sure there was ver­i­fi­ca­tion be­fore tak­ing any ac­tion.

The re­port stat­ed that over 100 Trinida­di­ans, in­clud­ing chil­dren, were be­ing held in an over­crowd­ed Al-Hol camp in north­ern Syr­ia.

“As Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, I am en­sur­ing that the rel­e­vant au­thor­i­ties are con­duct­ing ver­i­fi­ca­tion and in­for­ma­tion gath­er­ing ex­er­cis­es and I will say that some of the ev­i­dence ob­tained so far with re­spect to some Trinida­di­ans who went to join ISIS is very dis­turb­ing.”

He as­sured that the min­istry will be act­ing in the best in­ter­est of T&T’s na­tion­als.

“The lens of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty is one that must take in all of the var­i­ous mat­ters and cir­cum­stances, many of which are not be­ing broad­cast in pub­lic, and bal­ance it all in favour of the pub­lic’s in­ter­est,” Young said.

He added, “There is a con­cert­ed ef­fort and agen­da be­ing pushed to por­tray per­sons who are in war zones and ex­posed to ISIS phi­los­o­phy and train­ing in a cer­tain in­nocu­ous man­ner.”

“At Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty, rest as­sured that we will con­tin­ue to act re­spon­si­bly and based on facts and ev­i­dence us­ing, in­ter alia, Team Nightin­gale to en­sure that the best de­ci­sions and ac­tions are tak­en in the pub­lic’s in­ter­est.”

Team Nightin­gale was formed in 2018 and in­cludes, the Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit, the Ter­ror­ist In­ter­dic­tion Unit,  the Fi­nan­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tion Branch, the Child Pro­tec­tion Unit, the An­ti-Ter­ror­ism Desk, Min­istry of the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Le­gal Af­fairs, the Chil­dren’s Au­thor­i­ty, the Counter-Traf­fick­ing Unit, the An­ti-Mon­ey Laun­der­ing/Com­bat­ing the Fi­nanc­ing of Ter­ror­ism Com­pli­ance Unit, and the In­tel­li­gence Ser­vices.

In the re­port car­ried by MEE, Thomas-John­son said: “Trinidad-based fam­i­lies have been lob­by­ing the gov­ern­ment for months, in an ef­fort led by Fe­li­cia Perkins-Fer­reira, who res­cued her two chil­dren from the neigh­bour­ing Al-Roj camp in Jan­u­ary.”

She said a de­tailed list com­piled by the fam­i­lies was shared with MEE and of­fers an in­sight in­to the Trinida­di­an na­tion­als held at Al-Hol, “who ar­rived as part of an ex­o­dus of peo­ple flee­ing the cap­tur­ing of Is­lam­ic State group ter­ri­to­ry by a US-backed mil­i­tary cam­paign spear­head­ed by the Syr­i­an De­mo­c­ra­t­ic Forces (SDF) ear­li­er this year.”

It is be­lieved that 25 women and 71 chil­dren of T&T were at the camp as of the start of No­vem­ber, while pre­vi­ous re­ports said there were on­ly 25. At least 130 Trinidad and To­bag­on­ian na­tion­als went to Iraq and Syr­ia be­tween 2013 and 2016. Many of the fight­ers were killed in bat­tle.