The Jamaat al Muslimeen was founded in 1982 by Yasin Abu Bakr, a former policeman and convert to Islam, and established a compound at No.

In 1984 a court ordered the Muslimeen to vacate the property and demolish the buildings they had constructed without planning permission, including an incomplete mosque.

[5]: 421  The NAR government implemented a programme of spending cuts, tax increases and devalued the Trinidad and Tobago dollar in an attempt to reverse the country's economic decline.

[6] The government's Social Welfare Department and the public hospitals lacked the resources to handle the increase in demands for their services.

[5]: 470–477 In July 1985, former bank Auditor General and one of Abu Bakr’s chief lieutenants Abdul Kareem was murdered by an unknown assailant while in police custody.

This event led members of Jamaat al Muslimeen to believe that the government was being oppressive and had illegally occupied their land.

Before the coup d'état attempt, Abu Bakr was arrested several times on charges of contempt of court and illegal demonstrations.

Almost simultaneously, forty-two insurgents led by Bilaal Abdullah stormed the Red House, the seat of Parliament, and took Robinson and most of his cabinet hostage, while seventy-two of their accomplices led by Yasin Abu Bakr attacked the offices of Trinidad and Tobago Television (TTT), the only television station in the country at that time.

[10] Prime Minister Robinson was beaten, degraded and shot in the lower right leg when he tried to order the army to attack the militants.

On the night of 27 July, the Jamaat were isolated by the army at both Red House and TTT locations with no access to radio and television for propaganda.

On 22 September, Abu Bakr was detained and questioned for two hours at London's Heathrow airport while en route to an Islamic conference in Libya.

[13] In late July or early August 2010, the court ruled that many properties owned by the Jamaat would be sold to make up for the cost of the destruction of buildings in the coup attempt.

[15] The Enquiry found that the proximate cause of the attempted coup was the inadequate communication by Special Branch of the Police Service to inform national security with two years of intelligence that an insurrection by the Jamaat against the Republic was likely.