The Caribbean’s Second Specially Designated Global Terrorist

December 14, 2017 News , OPINION/NEWS

AFP photo

By

Ricardo Swire

The United States Department of the Treasury, Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), named Abdullah Ibrahim Faisal, a Jamaican cleric, as the Caribbean’s second “Specially Designated Global Terrorist.” In March 2017 Shane Crawford, a Trinidad & Tobago national was the first regional islander named on America’s international terrorist list. Caribbean internal security intelligence officials have adjusted strategic overviews to include relevance of the fifty-four year old Jamaican jihadist ideologue campaign as an Islamic State (IS) recruiter, headquartered in the island’s suburban north-western parish of St James.

Since international patterns show a direct connection between English speaking radical Imams and American home-grown terrorists, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) and New York Police Department’s (NYPD) Intelligence Division share this internal security concern. In 2003 the Jamaican jihadist was imprisoned for four years in England as a Brixton based Imam who provoked racial hatred and murder. In 2007 he was paroled and deported to Jamaica.

The Jamaican cleric also lived in Africa and cultivated a strong support base in Kenya. In January 2010 the Kenyan government expelled him after several residents died supporting his jihadist ideology. In February 2010 the Islamic Council of Jamaica muzzled the returned controversial Imam from speaking in local mosques. In 2015 a British counterterrorism specialist, who served as the Jamaica Constabulary Force’s (JCF) Crime Chief for several years, suggested the island was a “soft target” for terrorists. He added Jamaica’s American and French Embassies, plus the British High Commission, were attractive targets for potential terrorists.

The August 25, 2017 New York County District Attorney Office for the State of New York indictment against the Jamaican Imam attested he supports radical IS extremism. Jamaica’s Specially Designated Global Terrorist breached America’s Executive Order 13224 Section 1(b) when he introduced curious Westerners to jihadist ideology and provided IS recruits with financial, technological and logistical support. The Jamaican jihadist used online dark-net portals to give converts foreign contacts information and law enforcement evasion techniques.

America’s August 2017 indictment confirmed he was connected to the December 2001 Al Qaeda shoe-bomber. Two of four London July 7, 2005 Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) bombers were facilitated by him. In 2010 the Jamaican digital IS operative was linked to the Pakistani Taliban terrorist who tried to explode a car-bomb in Time Square, New York City. In 2015 evidence connected the Caribbean islander to one of the jihadist shooters who attacked a crowd assembled at a prophet Muhammad drawing contest in Garland Texas. The Jamaican Muslim cleric awaits extradition to America.