Donald
Trump calls Obama the 'founder of Isis'
Republican
presidential nominee repeatedly refers to president as ‘Barack
Hussein Obama’ and says Hillary Clinton is Isis co-founder
Sabrina Siddiqui in
Las Vegas, Nevada
@SabrinaSiddiqui
Thursday 11 August
2016 07.20 BST
Donald Trump
escalated his rhetoric against Barack Obama on Wednesday, dubbing the
US president as the “founder of Isis”.
The Republican
presidential nominee’s comments, made at a rally in Sunrise,
Florida, came as Trump continued to face a backlash for hinting a day
earlier that his opponent, Hillary Clinton, be assassinated by gun
rights supporters.
“Isis is honoring
President Obama,” Trump said of Islamic State. “He is the founder
of Isis. He founded Isis. And, I would say the co-founder would be
crooked Hillary Clinton.”
Trump’s
declaration echoed an attack he made against Clinton last week, also
in Florida, in which he said the former secretary of state “should
get an award from them as the founder of Isis”.
Republicans have
long sought to blame the turmoil in the Middle East on the Obama
administration’s foreign policy, often criticizing the president
for underestimating the threat posed by Isis. But Trump has routinely
gone a step further by stating directly that Obama is sympathetic to
terrorists.
The former reality
TV star employed the same tactic on Wednesday, referring to the
president by his full name – Barack Hussein Obama – and repeating
it several times for emphasis his claim that Obama had founded Isis.
The origins of Isis
trace back to the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. The
group has been deemed an offshoot of al-Qaida, which carried out the
attacks on 11 September 2001. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian
militant terrorist viewed as the founder of Isis, was killed in a US
airstrike in Baghdad in 2006.
Although Isis has
expanded rapidly during Obama’s tenure, seizing in particular on
the Syrian civil war, the administration has also made gains in its
military campaign against the extremist group. US army Lieutenant
General Sean MacFarland said on Wednesday an estimated 45,000
fighters linked to Isis had been killed in the two years since the
US-led military coalition against the network was launched.
Trump has not
articulated a clear strategy against Isis, other than to threaten a
ruthless bombing campaign and continuously push his proposal to ban
Muslim immigration from the US.
He has also seized
on recent terrorist attacks to revive conspiracies about Obama’s
birthplace and religion.
Immediately after
the 12 June mass shooting at an LGBT nightclub in Orlando, Florida,
which left 49 dead and 53 more injured, Trump said Obama “doesn’t
get it or he gets it better than anybody understands”.
In addition to
insinuating that Obama, a Christian, is secretly a Muslim, Trump has
also falsely stated the president was born in Kenya when he was, in
fact, born in Hawaii.
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