Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump on Wednesday said that President Barack Obama his first secretary of state Hillary Clinton were the ‘founder’ and ‘co-founder’ of the State in Syria and Iraq.
“ISIS is honouring President Obama. He’s the founder of ISIS. He founded ISIS,” Trump said during a rally in Fort Lauderdale.
“I would say the co-founder would be ‘Crooked’ Hillary Clinton,” Trump added.
He also criticised Obama’s decision to withdraw US military forces from the Middle East and leaving behind a void ISIS could fill.
“We should never have gotten out the way we got out. We unleashed terrible fury all over the Middle East,” the GOP’s presidential nominee said.
“Instead of allowing some small forces behind to maybe, just maybe, keep it under control, we pulled it out,” he added.
The Republican presidential nominee in the past has accused his Democratic rival Clinton of founding the militant group.
Trump has long blamed Obama and Clinton for pursuing Mideast policies that created a power vacuum in Iraq that was exploited by ISIS.
He has sharply criticized Obama for announcing he would pull US troops out of Iraq, a decision that many Obama critics say created the kind of instability in which extremist groups like ISIS thrive.
The White House declined to comment on Trump's accusation.
The Islamic State group began as Iraq's local affiliate of al-Qaida, the group that attacked the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001. The group carried out massive attacks against Iraq's Shiite Muslim majority, fueling tensions with al-Qaida's central leadership. The local group's then-leader, Jordanian-born Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was killed in 2006 in a U.S. airstrike but is still seen as the Islamic State group's founder.
Trump's accusation — and his use of the president's middle name, Hussein — echoed previous instances where he's questioned Obama's loyalties.
In June, when a shooter who claimed allegiance to IS killed 49 people in an Orlando, Florida, nightclub, Trump seemed to suggest Obama was sympathetic to the group when he said Obama "doesn't get it, or he gets it better than anybody understands." In the past, Trump has also falsely suggested Obama is a Muslim or was born in Kenya, where Obama's father was from.
The President, a Christian, was born in Hawaii.
Trump lobbed the allegation midway through his rally at a sports arena, where riled-up supporters shouted obscenities about Clinton and joined in unison to shout "lock her up." He railed against the fact that the Orlando shooter's father, Seddique Mateen, was spotted in the crowd behind Clinton during a Monday rally in Florida, adding, "Of course he likes Hillary Clinton."
Sitting behind Trump at his rally on Wednesday was former Rep. Mark Foley, R-Fla., who resigned in 2006 after allegations he sent sexually suggestive messages to former House pages.
With AP Inputs
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