Islamic terrorists are taking advantage of the crisis at the southern border. #BacktheBan
The Link Between ISIS, The Southern Border, And The Guy Who Plotted A Terrorist Attack In National Harbor (Remember Him?)
Story continues below advertisementThe Center For Immigration Studies’ Todd Bensman, a senior fellow at the organization that bills itself as “low immigration, pro-immigrant”, has an interesting interview up with Anne Speckhard, the Director of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism (ICSVE) and Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Georgetown University School of Medicine — and, most importantly, the source of the reports about a month ago that ISIS had recruited members to penetrate migration routes to move across the Southern border and into the United States.
Speckhard and a colleague interviewed the operative and found him “really credible” which led them to write a piece Homeland Security Today, which was then picked up by Fox News and others.
Bensman interviewed Speckhard Tuesday and began to wonder about the link between potential ISIS operatives, migration routes into the U.S., and Trinidadian nationals who are recruited by the terror group and know those migration routes well.
The “now-repentant” operative was identified as Abu Henricki, a Canadian with dual Trinidadian citizenship detained by the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The captive provided researchers with a 90-minute videotaped interview of his time with ISIS, during which he described how its intelligence division, known as emni, approached several other Trinidadian ISIS operatives in 2016. In turn, they approached him with an infiltration plan hatched by a sympathizer in New Jersey. This sympathizer would help smuggle the group, each of whom Abu Henricki named during his ICSVE interview, over the southern border on false passports for eventual attacks on unspecified financial system targets inside the United States to create economic chaos. Abu Henricki said he refused the assignment and was tortured for refusing, but had no idea whether others had been sent in his stead. He said he thought some of the other Trinidadian plotters had been killed in action before they could leave.
Bensman — and even Speckhard — acknowledge that the idea terrorists may be taking advantage of the crisis at the southern border has become a political football, but that this does not mean that the threat shouldn’t be taken seriously, especially in light of the plot to attack National Harbor outside Washington, DC back in April using a truck to kill pedestrians.
In headlines, Rondell Henry was referred to as a “Maryland man,” but he was a native of Trinidad. Bensman wonders if the threat of terrorism through the southern border might be coming from radicalized natives of the tiny island nation off the coast of Venezuela.The idea that ISIS would contemplate putting a team together for the U.S. border is more than plausible; it would be surprising if it had it not happened.
As I have often documented, too, (also here and here), the capacity for ISIS operatives to travel from Syria to the southern border is well-established. Smuggling organizations routinely bridge the Atlantic Ocean to link Middle Eastern countries like Syria and Iraq to the U.S. southern border through as many as a dozen Latin America countries. Numerous reputed Islamist terrorists have made the journey, such as a Somali who crossed into California and went on to conduct a 2017 vehicle-ramming attack in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
There’s no question at all that ISIS operatives living in Syria, including Trinidadians and Canadians, could have been smuggled through Mexico had they been sent.
That ISIS found plenty of Trinidad and Tobago citizens in its ranks is not surprising, and it is logical to initially assume that ISIS commanders might have thought of them as useful for border infiltration because they are familiar with western hemisphere route nations and might blend in well as Spanish-speaking workers and as English-speaking U.S. residents later.
As I have recently written, at least 130 of Trinidad and Tobago’s 1.2 million citizens, including entire families, joined ISIS in Syria and pose an infiltration threat upon return because the islands are close to known smuggling lanes to the border. The U.S. Army’s Southern Command has participated in anti-terror raids to capture high-value targets plotting attacks. Island residents have shown up on propaganda films committing murders in Syria. A New York Times article quoted former U.S. Ambassador John L. Estrada as saying islanders “are high up in the ranks” of ISIS. “They are very respected and they are English-speaking,” the former ambassador said.
In April, I wrote a column asking whether an ISIS-inspired T&T national living in Maryland, who was arrested for aspiring to a vehicle-ramming attack on Maryland’s National Harbor, maintained any associations with radicals in his homeland or abroad. ICSVE researchers have interviewed three Trinidadians from ISIS, now in SDF custody, one who lived for some time inside the United States as legal residents.
The point is that ISIS had available to it a pool of ideologically prepared, trained and willing Trinidadian operatives it could have sent.
Bensman concludes his report with this: “[R]egardless of partisan sentiment, [we should] look at the border crisis as about much more than Central Americans with children.” None of this is meant to make people paranoid about their island neighbors, simply to reinforce the truth that ISIS successfully recruits young men from many different nationalities, and may have been exploiting the upheaval at the southern border to try to get them in the country.
The Truth Must be Told
Your contribution supports independent journalism
Please take a moment to consider this. Now, more than ever, people are reading Geller Report for news they won't get anywhere else. But advertising revenues have all but disappeared. Google Adsense is the online advertising monopoly and they have banned us. Social media giants like Facebook and Twitter have blocked and shadow-banned our accounts. But we won't put up a paywall. Because never has the free world needed independent journalism more.
Everyone who reads our reporting knows the Geller Report covers the news the media won't. We cannot do our ground-breaking report without your support. We must continue to report on the global jihad and the left's war on freedom. Our readers’ contributions make that possible.
Geller Report's independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our work is critical in the fight for freedom and because it is your fight, too.
Please contribute here.
or
Make a monthly commitment to support The Geller Report – choose the option that suits you best.
Quick note: We cannot do this without your support. Fact. Our work is made possible by you and only you. We receive no grants, government handouts, or major funding. Tech giants are shutting us down. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense, Pinterest permanently banned us. Facebook, Google search et al have shadow-banned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here.Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here— it’s free and it’s essential NOW when informed decision making and opinion is essential to America's survival. Share our posts on your social channels and with your email contacts. Fight the great fight.
Follow Pamela Geller on Gettr. I am there. click here.
Follow Pamela Geller on Trump's social media platform, Truth Social. It's open and free.
Remember, YOU make the work possible. If you can, please contribute to Geller Report.
Join The Conversation. Leave a Comment.
We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spammy or unhelpful, click the - symbol under the comment to let us know. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.
If you would like to join the conversation, but don't have an account, you can sign up for one right here.
If you are having problems leaving a comment, it's likely because you are using an ad blocker, something that break ads, of course, but also breaks the comments section of our site. If you are using an ad blocker, and would like to share your thoughts, please disable your ad blocker. We look forward to seeing your comments below.
Muslim terrorists have lived for two generations now in the outlaw ‘triangle’ region of South America. There are Muslim Hezbollah born and raised there who speak fluent Spanish and look Hispanic. Gee, that might be dangerous in the long run.
This is all planned. I mean we are finding Negroes from Africka coming from EBOLA infected areas coming through the Southern border.
It seems like a nation-State planned operation by guess who??
The Camp of the Saints.
“Camp of the Saints “ ?
“The Turner Diaries “ ?
I’ll bet you believe Sylvester Stallone was the greatest White heavyweight champion in boxing history.
Fiction , all of it .
Meanwhile in Toronto..Still no clue.
The demonrats blame President Trump for everything from the fall of Rome to the present day.
So let me then say George Soros backs terror ops and supports the illegals jumping the Southern border and is,IMO responsible for much,if not most of the current situation going on here,not only is it his MO,it is also his wishes for “Open Borders” and those who so blatantly support the TREASON of “open Borders” and all that go with are also Traitors to our Country,We the People and the oath of office they took..
WHY is George Soros walking around FREE?
Is the Mossad bought and paid for by a NAZI?
He sent many German Jews to the death camps,WHY hasn’t he paid the price?
WHY are his multi tentacled organizations NOT being investigated top to bottom and when his terror connections fully exposed,be arrested for his complicity,funding and giving aid and comfort to our enemies and then have every penny he made from all his slimy acts across the planet seized and his orgs. disbanded?
George Soros is a Clear AND Present existential threat to the USA,WHY is this being ignored?
He is a disease and yet ONLY the symptoms get attention.
Soros is an INSECT what NEEDS to be stepped on like the cockroach he is..
Semper Fi
Silver Bullet Gun Oil
13% Pork grease
On Amazon
He sent many German Jews to the death camps,WHY hasn’t he paid the price?
Aiy, yi, yi. ‘Bullet. Soros was a 13 year old boy living in Hungary at the time he cooperated with the Nazis. He had nothing to do with sending German Jews to the “campls”. Your general direction may be salutory, but before you hold forth: Get a clue!
George Soros was a 14 year old FERRET for the Gestapo,he found Jews in hiding and turned them in as in RATTED their hiding place out for a cut of their goods,he admitted it.You’re the clueless one,or does George have you on his payroll also?
This article should be taken very seriously !!!!
The Islamic State, The Southern Border and a Massive Terrorist Attack in Washington, D.C.
Just part and parcel of living in a big city, eh?
But hey,. if they are going to do it, DC might be a great starting point!