TT: PANIC IN PORT OF SPAIN!!

Fear gripped Port-of-Spain and other parts of T&T yesterday, after police locked down parts of the capital to strike back against what authorities thought could have been a terrorist attack.

It had been rumoured as bomb scares at several buildings, among them Police Administration Building and Port-of-Spain Magistrates' Court.

But National Security sources said intelligence officers had received information that a group of men were on their way to blow up the police administration complex and the courthouse on St Vincent Street.

A source said undercover officers received information that seven cars conveying a group of men from a sect, left their camp just before noon for Port-of-Spain.

Note well how the "sect" is unidentified, when everyone knows that the "sect" in question is Islamic and is most likely the Jamaat al Muslimeen.

From my hometown of San Fernando, this report:

Panic which gripped the nation's capital yesterday afternoon, spread to the southern city of San Fernando.

As radio stations broadcast reports that security had been intensified around Parliament, Police Headquarters and Hall of Justice on St Vincent Street because of bomb threats, some commuters bound for Port-of-Spain altered their plans.

Yet others were anxious to go north.

"I want to go to town fast because I missed it (the July 27,1990 coup attempt) the last time," one person said.

Concerned citizens called the Guardian's South Bureau wanting to know if the "Parliament and bptt had been bombed."

Some mothers rushed to nearby schools to collect their children, fearing a repeat of the 1990 coup attempt.

One caller also claimed that about 25 men clad in Muslim garb had assembled at Cocoyea Village, on the outskirts of San Fernando, and left together in a bus after their Friday juma (midday prayers).

So far, none of the other Caribbean newspapers have yet to carry the story of the terrorist cache found in Cocorite about a week ago.