Caliphatus Caribaeus

Infrastructura Digitalis et Repositio Publica

Since the death of founder Yasin Abu Bakr in October 2021, the Jamaat al-Muslimeen (JAM) has consolidated an open and verifiable digital presence through active social media accounts, a YouTube channel, and publicly listed contact information.

The handle is @jamaatalmuslimiin. The address is publicly listed: #1 Mucurapo Road, Saint James, Trinidad and Tobago. The contact number appears unencrypted: +1 868-772-0184. The email address is in plain text: [email protected]. Even TikTok has their account: @jamaat.al.muslime.

The observed digital openness constitutes a verifiable shift in the organization's public communications strategy under the leadership of Sadiq al Razi. Al Razi was one of 114 insurgents who participated in the assault on Trinidad's Parliament in July 1990 and currently projects himself publicly as a religious and community leader.

In August 2024, the JAM rejoined the African Emancipation Day march in Port of Spain after several years of absence. The move is consistent with a discursive repositioning strategy oriented toward public legitimation and community projection.

Network Analysis Accounts Followed by @jamaatalmuslimiin

The review of accounts followed by @jamaatalmuslimiin allows identification of institutional affinities, community nodes, and proximity relationships within the local Islamic ecosystem as observed in open sources.

The analyzed account does not exhibit Islamic State iconography or open calls to violence. The analytical value of the sample lies in identifying dawah organizations, educational institutions, youth groups, and personal accounts linked to the religious and community ecosystem surrounding the JAM.

Islamic Da'wah Movement @islamicdawahmovement

Nur-E-Islam Masjid @nureislammasjid

Al Ihsaan Institute @alihsaaninstitutett

Takaaful T&T Friendly Society @takaafultt

The active following of @takaafultt by the JAM's official account incorporates an Islamic financial entity into the organization's relational map in an environment with documented regulatory concern history regarding terrorism financing.

Youths of Islam / Shabab Ul Islam @youthsofislamtt_ / @youthsofislamtt

MUBASHIRUN @mubashirun_org

Abu Hidaayah wa Nur Account followed by JAM

Shaheed Abdul Hamid Account followed by JAM

Sadiq al Razi and the JAM's Public Reconversion

Sadiq al Razi is 69 years old, has nine children, a civil engineering degree, and was one of the 114 armed men who assaulted Trinidad's Parliament in 1990. Today he is the supreme leader of the Jamaat al-Muslimeen and the architect of what he himself calls a "rebranding."

In August 2024, al Razi told media that "the JAM is different" and that the organization is ready to "contribute positively to the national landscape." In November 2024, he participated in a public crime forum arguing that "crime knows no borders" and that Muslims have "the responsibility to enjoin what is right and forbid what is wrong." On the anniversary of the 1990 coup, he announced that day would be devoted to "prayer, fasting, and feeding the poor" rather than political commemorations.

The observed discursive shift is consistent with public reconversion processes in organizations with a violent history, where communicational emphasis moves toward social legitimacy, community service, and institutional presence.

Abu Bakr's nominal successor was initially described in Trinidadian media as a "caretaker" figure a transitional leader intended to stabilize the organization for three months. Three years later, al Razi remains in post. Al Razi's continued tenure suggests stability in the organizational transition process and in the preservation of the public representation structure.

Structural Genealogy From JAM to ISIS

To understand the JAM's present relevance, it is necessary to trace the chain of transmission between the original organization and the jihadist pipeline that sent more than 240 Trinidadians to Syria between 2013 and 2016. The chain is not direct the JAM never declared affiliation with the Islamic State but it is traceable and documented.

Recruitment Geography: The Three Nodes the State Didn't Close

Contrary to what the government of Trinidad and Tobago has publicly communicated, the geographic epicenters of jihadist recruitment did not disappear with the territorial fall of the caliphate in 2019. Three zones that academic analysis and open-source records identify as persistently active in terms of Islamist infrastructure exist, with varying degrees of direct involvement.

Profile Demographicum Pugnatorum Externorum

When the U.S. Department of State named Trinidad and Tobago as the largest per capita exporter of fighters to ISIS in the Western Hemisphere, the instinctive reaction was to seek the familiar pattern: unemployed young men, radicalized on the internet, with little education. What the data shows is a completely different picture.

These data transform the analysis. We are not looking at individual radicalization of vulnerable youth, but at a process of family and community migration toward the caliphate. Middle-aged men, employed, with children, who made the conscious decision to take their families to live under the Islamic State. The radicalization was slow, communal, and deeply rooted in pre-existing trust networks built over years in environments like Boos Settlement.

90 Trinidadenses in Syria: Quaestio quam Gubernatio Ignorare Elegit

In July 2023, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism, Fionnuala N Aolin, visited the al-Hol and Roj detention camps in northeastern Syria. She documented the presence of approximately 90 Trinidadian nationals, including at least 56 minors and 21 women. Most of the children were born in the camps or were brought there as infants.

The Trinidadian government's response was to create committees, then ignore them. The "Nightingale Committee" was created in 2018 to develop a repatriation plan. In 2020, a ministerial affidavit declared the plan was "at an advanced stage." By January 2023 there was talk of a "Returnee Bill" in draft form. In December of that same year, the chair of the advisory committee appointed by PM Rowley declared they were at "an impasse." The government had not even responded to letters from Human Rights Watch.

This paralysis has consequences that go beyond individual humanitarian tragedy. Children growing up in al-Hol, surrounded by active ISIS recruiters inside the camp itself, exposed to conditions the UN classifies as "cruel and inhumane treatment," represent the potential third generation of the problem: the first was the JAM of the 1980s, the second was the 20132016 pipeline, and the potential third generation corresponds to minors with Trinidadian nationality exposed for extended periods to radicalization environments in camps linked to the former ISIS-controlled territory.

The Security Ecosystem That Tries and Fails to Respond

Trinidad and Tobago is not completely alone facing this problem. The international response, led primarily by the United States, has built a support architecture that exists on paper and partially in practice.

The SafeCommuniTT network, funded by the U.S. Embassy in Port of Spain, brings together more than 100 key actors from government officials to former convicts trained in best practices for preventing violent extremism. The Caribbean Basin Security Initiative has funded police and military training. The city of Chaguanas, the country's second urban center and a documented recruitment zone, has been part of the Strong Cities Network, the U.S.-funded global network of mayors against extremism, since 2017.

The problem is that this architecture responds to yesterday's threat the already-disrupted Syrian pipeline while tomorrow's threats are being built in the digital silence of carefully curated Instagram accounts, in the Islamic educational institutes the JAM actively follows, and in the Syrian detention camps where the children of Trinidadian jihadists learn their first and only world.

In November 2024, Imam Sadiq al Razi participated in a public crime forum in Trinidad and said that "crime affects everyone, without distinction of race, age, or political affiliation." A religious leader talking about community crime. This public positioning reinforces the social integration and discursive normalization strategy observed in the JAM since the post-Abu Bakr leadership transition.

Implicationes Operativae

The set of observed indicators shows a structure with digital projection capacity, community articulation, and institutional continuity. The network followed by the JAM's official account concentrates religious, educational, youth, and personal organizations linked to the same social and doctrinal environment.

In open sources, no direct calls to violence were identified on the reviewed platforms. However, the combination of organizational history, institutional persistence, and digital exposure configures a relevant space for continued analytical monitoring.