After last year’s fall of Raqqa in Syria, in which US backed forces declared that major military operations against the so called Islamic State has ended, the broader Middle East and the international community is asking themselves what happens next? It marks the end of a self-declared Islamic “Caliphate” in which its supporters and recruits converged on the geographical location of parts of Syria and Iraq and controlled territory, influence and power. Now disbanded into a network of now a ragtag insurgency movement with remnants still in the region and on the online space; it was once a location converging various ethnicities, nationalities and groups of people from all walks of life going after one agenda: an utopian Islamist Ummah. In those ranks included individuals from the Caribbean island nation of Trinidad and Tobago, a small nation off the coast of Venezuela.

Since 9/11/01, national and international publics have been compelled to deal with the problem of terrorism. However, when examining the discourse, it is saturated with popular myths and stereotypes, especially related to the challenges of homegrown terrorism. To move beyond 1 popular myths, this paper examines the data-driven findings from the 2016 New America Foundation (NAF) report Terrorism in America After 9/11, and the preliminary findings from a 2 forthcoming study developed by this author and Dr. Muhammad Fraser-Rahim to be produced by the NAF in early 2018, Transforming the Hate that Hate Produced: Examining the Story and Deradicalization work of The Community of W.D. Muhammad.