ISIL in the Caribbean: Why Trinidadians fight in Syria and Iraq
May 19, 2017
How did the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago become the nation with the highest number of ISIS recruits per capita in the Western Hemisphere?
Caribbean to Caliphate – there are few films I have made that received similar, curious interest from friends and colleagues. Usually after a few seconds delay they ask: … “from where?” Nobody, it seems, imagines the palm-lined beaches of the Caribbean as a recruitment ground for the so-called Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS).
And yet Trinidad has a problem.
At a conservative count, at least 130 Trinidadians have left for Syria and Iraq, which may not sound a lot, but the tiny two-island-nation has only 1.3 million inhabitants, which means that in terms of per capita figures, recruitment is the highest in the Western Hemisphere.
So the problem is genuine and the question is, of course, why? The answer depends on who you ask.
According to Yasin Abu Bakr, one of the main reasons why young black men are joining ISIL is their marginalisation. Abu Bakr is the leader of the Jamaat al-Muslimeen, a militant group which counts mainly Afro-Trinidadian Muslim converts as its members
