Donald Trump charged President Barack Obama on Wednesday with being the founder of the Islamic State during a campaign rally in Florida.
(FOX)- “In many respects, you know, they honor President Obama,” Trump said during a campaign stop in Fort Lauderdale. “He is the founder of ISIS.”
Last week, his campaign tried to draw financial links between the Clinton Foundation and the terror group. Wednesday, he called Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton the group’s “co-founder.”
Trump has long accused Obama and Clinton for pursuing Middle East policies that created a power vacuum in Iraq that was exploited by Islamic State. He had criticized Obama for announcing he would yank U.S. troops out of Iraq, which Obama critics believe created the instability in which extremist groups thrive.
The White House had yet to comment on Trump’s remarks.
The Islamic State group began as Iraq’s local affiliate of Al Qaeda, 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 Qaeda’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.
The Trump campaign alleged in a statement last week that the Clinton Foundation ties to a corporation “funding” ISIS.
The campaign detailed financial contributions the Clinton Foundation received from a cement-making company called Lafarge. The same statement citedreporting in French media outlets that the company had entered deals with the Islamic State and other armed groups in Syria to protect its interests there.