TT: Trinidad on the front-line as Jamaat member with terrorist ties to Al Qaeda arrested

A joint police/army unit yesterday arrested eight people, including a former Jamaat al Muslimeen member, and seized several items used in terrorist activity during a raid in the Cocorite area.

A contingent of 200 officers from the Western Division Criminal Investigations Department, Defence Force, Organised Crime and Narcotics Unit and Firearms Interdiction Unit cordoned off the Cocorite area during the exercise.

The exercise, which was headed by ACP Wellington Virgil, started at 3 am and consisted of house-to-house searches.

The officers later discovered a Tech-nine automatic gun, two hand grenades, two fully-loaded magazines, 60 rounds of 9 mm ammunition, a large quantity of gunpowder, books on how to make bullets, marijuana and chemical instructions on making bombs.

Other findings included instructions on 22 ways to kill a man with one's bare hands, pictures and structural plans of three high-rise buildings in Port-of-Spain, including Nicholas Towers and the Financial Twin Towers on Independence Square.

Several documents containing the names of possible international terrorist networks, and the names and addresses of 15 Muslims, both local and international, were also discovered.

Documented links of the former Jamaat member with Al Qaeda, and processed papers of him obtaining his pilot's licence in Miami, USA, were also seized.

The 26-year-old former Jamaat member had been under surveillance by members of the FIU for some time.

The Guardian's headline for the piece read "Cops crack 'terrorist cell' in Cocorite." Why the scare quotes? Is the Caribbean exempt from terrorist threats? Not at all. TT has been here before in 1990 when the Jamaat al Muslimeen attempted a coup in their bid to force TT into becoming an Islamic state. Thus, there can be no hiding the head in the sand on this, and no need for scare quotes. The war on terror is not an American war. It is an existentital war that all of Western civilization must wage. If we duck our duty to fight, we will not continue to be.