“National Security called me one day and told me, ‘Your son is dead.’ ”
Law enforcement officials in Trinidad and Tobago, a small Caribbean island nation off the coast of Venezuela, are scrambling to close a pipeline
that has sent a steady stream of young Muslims to Syria, where they have taken up arms for the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
Despite having made thinly veiled threats to Americans in the past, which led a cruise ship on its way to Trinidad to turn back, Mr. Abdullah has since denounced extremism,
and now says Muslims must work with the United States to “change the narrative.” It would be “stupid” to try to attack the United States Embassy, he said.
Mr. Mohammed has publicly denounced the Islamic State, but noted
that his own United States visa and commercial pilot’s license had been revoked after a terrorism suspect passed through his Islamic center.
One hundred to 130 people have made the trip to Syria from Trinidad, which has a population of 1.3 million, according to a former United States ambassador, John L. Estrada,
and Trinidad’s minister of national security, Edmund Dillon.
Per capita, Trinidad has the greatest number of foreign fighters from the Western Hemisphere who have joined
the Islamic State, said Mr. Estrada, who stepped down after the inauguration of President Trump last month.
Juan S. Gonzalez, a former deputy assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs,
said the bulk of Islamic State fighters from Latin America originated in Trinidad and Tobago.
The United States, which encouraged Trinidad to tighten its laws, has hosted meetings with Muslim leaders at the embassy in Port of Spain,
and paid for several to attend anti-extremism workshops in the United States.
