ISIS, foreign fighters and Trinidad and Tobago
Leah de Haan
This blogpost summarizes the key takeaways from a recent Chatham House webinar given by Simon Cottee, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Kent.
1. Trinidad and Tobago was one of the biggest contributors to ISIS per capita
According to the government’s own figures, 130 people left Trinidad and Tobago between 2013 and 2015 to join the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS). This does not sound like a large number, but when you take into consideration that the population of Trinidad and Tobago is 1.3 million people — of which approximately 100,000 are Muslims — this is clearly a significant proportion of the population. In fact, it comes to approximately 96 people per million. This is double the proportion of foreign fighters that travelled to ISIS from Belgium, a country which is considered one of the biggest sources of ISIS foreign fighters.
2. It is largely about families
The standard narratives about foreign fighters traveling to ISIS tend to centre on marginalized, young, largely male Muslims. While there are of course problems with this caricature in general, it is particularly incorrect in the case of Trinidad and Tobago, where the ratio of adult men and women travelling to ISIS territory is about 60:40. This makes Trinidad and Tobago the highest per capita source of female ISIS migrants. Even more significant is that 43 per cent of all the people that travelled to ISIS-controlled territories were minors.
When you add to this that most of the adult ISIS recruits from Trinidad and Tobago were married, middle class and about a decade older than the average foreign fighter, it seems that whole families were travelling to ISIS territory — instead of marginalized, young, male individuals. In fact, at least 26 families have been known to have travelled together. These dynamics also show that, while the standard narrative is about frustration, poverty and social exclusion, the real reasons were somewhat different. In most cases, those who left had become spiritually disaffected from Trinidad and Tobago and its defining values.
3. In-person networks were more important than online radicalization
A lot of focus has been on ISIS’s ability to radicalize people through engaging with them online. In the case of Trinidad and Tobago, it appears that in-person interactions were far more important. This is clear from the fact that everyone who travelled to ISIS-controlled territory were either friends or family. It also explains why there is such a clear geographic clustering, as all the foreign fighters came from three particular areas in Trinidad and Tobago: Diego Martin, Rio Claro and Chaguanas. At the heart of this network is Imam Nazim Mohammed and the settlement he leads in Rio Clare called Boos Village. The in-person, pro-ISIS network that he appears to be central to was one of main sources of radicalization and mobilization for the foreign fighters that travelled to join ISIS.
4. There is no real plan for returnees
Given the situation in Syria and Iraq, a core tenet of the conversation on foreign fighters who travelled to join ISIS is how to deal with people returning to their homeland. In Trinidad and Tobago, it seems that just two women, one man, two boys and two teenage girls have returned from ISIS-held territory. However, a key part of the discussion that requires more attention is the issue of minors in detention in Syria and Iraq, and the work being done to bring them home. Numbers vary, but it seems realistic to estimate that at least 60 children are currently being held in detention centres in the Middle East. Despite this number being so high, there appears to be very little political appetite to deal with this situation. This despite the fact that the moral case in defence of these children is particularly compelling, given that they were trafficked to ISIS territory by their parents.
5. There have been no criminal charges
To date no charges have been brought in Trinidad and Tobago for ISIS-related activity. Here, as with the problem of returnees, the government appears to be largely ignoring the problem. It is admittedly complicated to bring ISIS recruits to justice. This is as, until August 2018, it was not a crime in Trinidad and Tobago to travel to ISIS-controlled territory and proving complicity in war crimes can be tricky due to a lack of evidence.
The most effective way to prosecute foreign fighters returning to Trinidad and Tobago may then be for trafficking their children to ISIS-held territory. In order to do this, most of the emphasis will need to be on demonstrating that the minors who travelled to ISIS were exploited. Given that children were conscripted into combat aged as young as ten or were forced into marriage or sexual servitude as young as nine, there should be a clear case to make.
Leah de Haan is Junior Editor in the International Affairs team at Chatham House.
Simon Cottee is Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Kent. This blogpost was based on a recent webinar he gave at Chatham House.
The webinar drew on an article published in the March 2019 issue of International Affairs, titled ‘The calypso caliphate: how Trinidad became a recruiting ground for ISIS’.
Read the article online here.
