(Trinidad Newsday) A Cunupia man who joined ISIS has no regrets over leaving Trinidad & Tobago for Syria, though three of his wives and three of his children were killed. Ziad Mohammed, 29, told a foreign journalist, in an article published on Friday last week, that his love for the Islamic State remains in his heart and it makes no difference to him if he is sentenced in Trinidad & Tobago or in Syria.
Mohammed, whose story was posted online by the Syrian North Press Agency (NPA), is also seen in a video speaking about never having an inclination for jihad (holy war).
The story described him as having a Jordanian father and a Canadian mother, and said he had studied mechanical engineering for two and a half years.
Married with a child in Trinidad & Tobago, Mohammed recalls how he left Trinidad & Tobago for Syria, saying he worked as a mechanic before his brother encouraged him to leave.He described the call to join ISIS as a blessing from Allah.
“I was preparing to build a house. I’ve never been with the idea of jihad. My brother came to me and said, ‘I am leaving for Syria.’ I asked him why we just don’t go to Saudi Arabia, it’s the Muslims’ destination,” the article quoted Mohammed as saying.“I told my brother, ‘What I could do to help the Muslims?’ He replied, ‘You can help them in fixing vehicles and doing maintenance work.’” Foreign journalists who have been tracking ISIS “exporting” countries say Trinidad & Tobago has the highest number of ISIS recruits per capita, with 130 men, women and children. At the height of the ISIS insurgency in 2016 in Syria and Iraq, according to other reports, the number was 240.
Several of the men are believed to have been killed. Latest reports up to yesterday were that Trinidad & Tobago children and women are suffering extreme hardship at a Kurdish-run camp in northern Syria, as Turkish forces and Kurdish militias clash. Mohammed is in a detention centre run by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northern Syria. He surrendered in March.He told the NPA his Canadian wife had refused to leave TT to travel with him, so he left her and their child here.
The report said, “Mohammed explained that he’d entered Syria through Turkey, indicating that he first came to Istanbul before going to Gaziantep, then to enter Syrian territory, specifically from the border town of Jarabulus in the northern Aleppo countryside, with the help of an ISIS member.”
He continued, “After I underwent a military training camp, when they asked me about the possibilities I could help them with, I said I was a mechanic. They took the information about me and moved me to the place of maintaining vehicles in the city of Al-Bab. Until that time there were no experienced mechanics in the ranks of ISIS.”He went on to explain that when the SDF advanced to where he was working as a mechanic, he tried to escape to return to Trinidad & Tobago, but was arrested. Detained and punished by ISIS insurgents for being a spy, Mohammed believes his life was spared because they became trapped as the SDF forces advanced.
“It created disturbance and disorder inside ISIS and I was forgiven and released,” the article said.
During his stay in Syria, Mohammed said he divorced his first wife and married four other wives from different countries. The story said three of his wives and three children were killed in the town of al-Baghuz, during shelling between ISIS and SDF.Mohammed was wounded by shrapnel in the kidney and back, the article said. It quoted him as saying that in four years in the ranks of ISIS, he never killed anyone. Mohammed ended by saying he is not regretful about his journey to Syria.
“Syria is better than Trinidad because it does not have such obscene acts as homosexuality and alcohol.”
