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Caribbean terror: the international Shiite menace?
Does the FBI think there's a connection between the JFK plot and international Shiite terrorist groups?
Trinidad and Tobago, where two of the conspirators in the plot were arrested over the weekend, is swarming with foreign press today, and much of the information coming out of the Caribbean country is murky, reflecting how unexpected it is that a terror plot could have emerged from such an unlikely place. But just when it appeared that the JFK bombing plot couldn't get much weirder -- the fuel tanks that the conspirators sought to detonate would most likely fail to detonate the underground fuel pipeline running from Pennsylvania to the airport, for instance -- word comes from the local press that the FBI has told law enforcement officials to look for connections between the plotters and... Iran and Iraq. Reports the Trinidad & Tobago Express:
Police intelligence in Trinidad and Tobago and the US say the group that planned to blow up fuel depots at JFK airport might be linked to radical Shia groups based in southern Iraq or Iran....Sources from the Police Special Branch say they are in the "process of trying to determine whether [alleged conspirator Kareem] Ibrahim has links to radical Shia groups in the Middle East based on information passed on to us the FBI." [sic]
FBI agents are in Trinidad investigating this and other aspects of the case involving Ibrahim and [Abdul] Kadir. ...
The Shia community is very "close knit and well organised" one leading Muslim told the Sunday Express.
"Shias all over the world are linked and the communities live close together and are well known for their extremism especially self-flagellation."
We'll check back in shortly on whether the FBI is really looking to Iran and Iraq for connections to the plot. Given that it doesn't appear from the criminal complaint (pdf) released over the weekend that the conspirators were actually able to secure the assistance of Jamaat al-Muslimeen, the Trinidadian criminal gang, it's hard to credit the idea that any Shiite terrorist group -- let alone Shiite state -- would consider the four conspirators a credible vehicle for attacking the United States.
Comments (19)
semper fubar wrote on June 4, 2007 3:00 PM:Regime change in T&T has been our official policy for years now, hasn't it? Ever since we discovered through super duper double top secret spy ops that it's a hotbed of terrorist activity.
Perhaps a nice invasion and occupation would do the trick. Surely it would be a cakewalk, and flower petals would be strewn, and it would take our attention off that thingie we have going on in the middle east at the moment.
Sheeesh. They aren't even trying to hide how stupid they think we are.
Codeword: sheep.
Baaaaaaaahhh!
semper fubar wrote on June 4, 2007 3:01 PM:Regime change in T&T has been our official policy for years now, hasn't it? Ever since we discovered through super duper double top secret spy ops that it's a hotbed of terrorist activity.
Perhaps a nice invasion and occupation would do the trick. Surely it would be a cakewalk, and flower petals would be strewn, and it would take our attention off that thingie we have going on in the middle east at the moment.
Sheeesh. They aren't even trying to hide how stupid they think we are.
Codeword: sheep.
Baaaaaaaahhh!
semper fubar wrote on June 4, 2007 3:03 PM:Dammit. My first post here, and it's a double.
Codeword: regret.
jake wrote on June 4, 2007 3:07 PM:i was first in trinidad in '91, not long after the coup. since then i've made about 10 trips back (i have friends and occasional business there). the jamaat seem to have no political ambitions and are pretty much a large criminal gang involved in drugs, kidnapping and murder of rivals, inside and outside the JAM. they are along the lines of NOI or black israelites - completely outside any religious mainstream. there are many shi'a muslims in the indian community there, but the JAM has no connection with them. their islamic image is more a remnant of the black power craze that hit trinidad in the 70's. it gives them a facade behind which to operate. trinis love the masquerade. it is deeply imbedded in their culture. abu bakr has provided inspiration for many a calypso. his rhetoric and buffoonery are seen as a counterpoint to the buffoonery of the government.
jolly ranchero wrote on June 4, 2007 3:11 PM:Rice's FBI team--no connection
Cheney's FBI team--definite, significant, and extremely dangerous Iran connection.
So whose team gets to make the call?
jerri wrote on June 4, 2007 3:18 PM:Per the BBC the JAM is a sunni group. Thus, any money or suport would come from the Saudi princes not Iran.
biltud wrote on June 4, 2007 3:26 PM:Let's not forget that T&T share the same natural gas and oil-rich assets as their very nearby friend, Venezuela.
Jason wrote on June 4, 2007 4:05 PM:There is a war on terror. Are you afraid now?
gb2/tx/ wrote on June 4, 2007 4:07 PM:>>So whose team gets to make the call?
It depends. Will W listen to mommy or daddy on this one?
SC: Screw, as in we r screwed
jake wrote on June 4, 2007 4:09 PM:semper fubar - thanks for reminding me, trinidad has OIL! and some of the largest national gas reserves in the world.
and wouldn't it be nice to have a beachhead 7 miles from the venezuelan mainland? we could keep an eye on hugo and his oil too...
julian wrote on June 4, 2007 4:17 PM:This story gets goofier with every new detail. And yet it inspired CNN last night to weave it into a question for the Democratic presidential candidates that Blitzer used to beat them up with. Is it wrong to suspect that this cockamamie plot is part of the Bush government's propaganda campaign to keep the public in its debt and the Dems offguard in the GWOT?
semper fubar wrote on June 4, 2007 4:19 PM:"we could keep an eye on hugo and his oil too..."
C'mon now - it's no more THEIR oil than the oil in Iraq is the Iraqis' oil. We all know who it really belongs to....
timg wrote on June 4, 2007 4:23 PM:Wait, I thought we were "fighting them over there so we wouldn't have to fight them here." So much for that plan. Can our troops come home now?
Mark in CA wrote on June 4, 2007 4:38 PM:Maybe the T&T government will just invite us to send troops there to help them with their Muslim extremist terrorism "problem." Then we can keep a much closer watch on Hugo & Co., set up a staging area, rattle some swords and just generally give the Venezuelans something to think about should they contemplate shutting off the spigot.
Jon H. wrote on June 4, 2007 4:50 PM:"The Shia community is very 'close knit and well organised' one leading Muslim told the Sunday Express.
'Shias all over the world are linked and the communities live close together and are well known for their extremism especially self-flagellation.'"
Let me guess, this anonymous Muslim source was a... Sunni?
Crack journalism there, proving the truth of some world-wide conspiracy by finding some anonymous source to talk about how bad all the Shiites are...
Ian wrote on June 4, 2007 5:21 PM:The current government in Trinidad owes far too much to the Jamaat al Muslimeen to invite anyone to help them with their "problem". And the survival instincts of the Jamaat are far too strong for them to go against the US. They're Libyan-aligned, not al Qaeda-aligned...and like the Libyans, "live to fight another day" matters more than ideology.
As for regime change in TT - George Bush is Patrick Manning's political guru - whenever Bush does something corrupt and anti-democratic, Manning seems to follow suit, only more excessively. And Manning is a born-again Christian, while the previous Prime Minister was Hindu. Which one do you think Bush would rather have in power?
Delia wrote on June 4, 2007 6:19 PM:Well, so far, none of the neocons' goofball excuses for invading Iran have caught fire. This is the goofiest stretch yet, but they certainly keep trying.
jimbobuddy wrote on June 4, 2007 11:07 PM:Gasoline pipelines are purged of air, which is replaced with nitrogen. There is NO oxygen in the pipes. Just because a couple of megalomaniac kooks believe that they can blow up all the neighborhoods that the pipeline runs through, doesnt make it so. It's interesting that the kooks over at NRO took this worst case scenario/fantasy and ran with it , apparently NOT bothering to consult with technical experts. Why let reality get in the way of the facts?
jimbobuddy wrote on June 4, 2007 11:09 PM:Gasoline pipelines are purged of air, which is replaced with nitrogen. There is NO oxygen in the pipes. Just because a couple of megalomaniac kooks believe that they can blow up all the neighborhoods that the pipeline runs through, doesnt make it so. It's interesting that the kooks over at NRO took this worst case scenario/fantasy and ran with it , apparently NOT bothering to consult with technical experts. Why let reality get in the way of a REALLY scary story?