Highlights
− Jamaat al Muslimeen (JaM) is a major Muslim organization in the Caribbean Basin and is involved in numerous criminal activities in the region
− JaM has ties to Libya and to international terrorist organizations
− Criminal activity and the drug trade are the main threats to the region
Formed in the 1970’s by two Afro-Trinidadian Islamic converts, Jamaat al Muslimeen (JaM), or Society of Muslims grew to nearly 20,000 active members at its height, comprising more than two percent of the entire population of Trinidad and Tobago. However, the more extreme fringe of group members involved in criminal activities today, likely numbers below 1,000. Born from the collapse of the country’s oil boom in the early 1980s, JaM is known specifically as a Black Sunni Muslim organization and recruits from the poor and displaced classes of society for whom its radical Islamic doctrine is most appealing.
Its leader is Yasin Abu Bakr who is currently awaiting trial on five charges including sedition, promoting a terrorist act, and inciting others to breach the peace, related to comments he made during an Eid-ul-Fitr sermon in November 2005 at a Mucurapo mosque. While his leadership has shaped the nature of JaM over the past years, his incarceration did not fully disrupt the capabilities of JaM over the long-term.
The group is mostly involved in criminal activity and has been largely a domestic/regional problem. Rarely, if ever, has the group had an effect outside the Caribbean Basin. Still, present and past members have been connected to or prosecuted for serious violent crimes including drug and gang related killings, rape and a current spree of kidnappings for ransom of members of the local upper and middle class. Notably, the organization and particularly its leader have the reputation of antagonism and racism against Trinidadians of Indian origin; most of the violent crimes and kidnappings are perpetrated against Indo-Trinidadians.
As such, for the majority of its existence, the extremist group could be characterized more as a local criminal gang and less as a global terrorist organization. However, there have been allegations that the group is connected to Middle Eastern terrorist groups, notably al-Qaeda. Additionally, JaM has taken bolder actions, as several militant members attempted to overthrow the government in a coup attempt that ended with 24 people dead.
The Coup Attempt
JaM achieved international attention in 1990 when it established ties with Libya, (ties that persisted throughout the 1990s and still exist to this day), and attempted to overthrow the Trinidadian government. Nearly 100 JaM members stormed the Parliament on July 27, 1990 and took the prime minister and a large portion of his cabinet members hostage. Three people were killed as the militants entered the building firing their rifles and detonating explosive devices. Simultaneously approximately 40 other members took over a Trinidad and Tobago television outlet so that JaM could announce that the government had been overthrown.
The militants surrendered after six days and were put in jail, only to be granted amnesty in 1992 by a federal court. After, JaM truly began its criminal activity and became involved in the drug trade, with gang related killings, rapes, and kidnappings still occurring today. Additionally, there were a handful of bombings in the summer of 2005,in which JaM was indicated as the key perpetrator (Terrorist Incident, Terrorist Incident, Terrorist Incident, and Terrorist Incident). It was these incidents, followed by an alleged attack attempt at New York City’s JFK airport that has initiated the debate regarding JaM’s relationship with al-Qaeda.
The Extremist Connection
Thus far there has been no definitive intelligence indicating that JaM has direct ties to any Middle Eastern terrorist organization. Despite the lack of a documented formal connection between JaM and al-Qaeda, Trinidad and Tobago’s institutional weakness, political and economic instability, and lawlessness are ideal breeding grounds for al-Qaeda’s ideology to take root. JaM already has the infrastructure in place to accept al-Qaeda’s influence and the worry would be that the result would be much like that of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AOIM), formerly the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC).
The most recent incident that suggested this type of influence may be blooming in Trinidad and Tobago occurred in June 2007 when the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested several JaM members in the Caribbean nation, who were allegedly plotting to blow up John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City (Previous Report). A high-level source said group members aimed to explode fuel farms at the airport. The FBI had the men under surveillance for more than one year and, with the assistance of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and National Security Agency (NSA), discovered their plot, as well as inferred the suspects’ possible connection to Middle Eastern terrorist groups, notably al-Qaeda. The connection, however, has remained solely an allegation as no direct line has ever been drawn between the two groups. JaM leadership has consistently denied any al-Qaeda connection.
The International Threat
The international security threat in the Caribbean Basin will persist due to its position as a key trans-shipment point for South American narcotics destined for the US and Europe. Illegal immigration, human trafficking, and money laundering will also present problems in the region. As such, global criminal gangs will continue to have influence in the area, but the assertion that the region has become a base of operations for radical Islamist terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda to stage attacks against the United States and other Western nations remains, to date, largely unsubstantiated.
Admittedly though, the region does remain an attractive target to terrorist organizations due to its geographic proximity to the US, porous borders, widespread poverty, endemic corruption, energy reserves, and its attraction as a US tourist destination.
JaM, specifically, will continue to be a regional threat, mostly because of its established role in criminal activities. Still, US and Trinidadian security services will continue to keep a close eye on the organization, as JaM remains an ongoing concern in the war on terrorism.
