Author Topic: Did the Maryland Terrorism Suspect Have Ongoing Ties with Jihadists in His Native Trinidad?  (Read 237 times)

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Did the Maryland Terrorism Suspect Have Ongoing Ties with Jihadists in His Native Trinidad?
 
By Todd Bensman on April 11, 2019

One question that should be asked and answered about this week's FBI arrest of ISIS-inspired Rondell Henry, who allegedly aspired to a vehicle-ramming attack on Maryland's National Harbor, is whether he or his plot had any live connection to his Caribbean island nation of origin, Trinidad and Tobago (T&T). The 28-year-old computer engineer immigrated from T&T, became a naturalized U.S. citizen, and converted to Islam at some point on his life journey that has, for now, ended in a Maryland jail cell.

The question of whether he maintained associations on his homeland islands matters because, as I have written, they have become a hotbed of Islamist extremism in America's southern sphere of interest, with hundreds of its citizens — men, women, and whole families — having joined the now-defunct ISIS caliphate in Iraq and Syria. Immigration and travel between the islands and the United States should be under greater scrutiny for this odd development alone, but most definitely — and much more so — if it turns out that Henry's conversion, radicalization, and alleged plot had any roots in Trinidad and Tobago.

https://cis.org/Bensman/Did-Maryland-Terrorism-Suspect-Have-Ongoing-Ties-Jihadists-His-Native-Trinidad