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| FILE -- In this Dec. 7, 2015 file photo, Republican presidential candidate, businessman Donald Trump, speaks during a rally coinciding with Pearl Harbor Day at Patriots Point aboard the aircraft carrier USS Yorktown in Mt. Pleasant, S.C. The SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors jihadi websites, said Al-Qaida’s branch in Somalia posted a video clip Friday, Jan. 1, 2016, of Trump calling for a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States” in a recruitment video aimed at African-American youth. |
MOGADISHU,
Somalia (AP) -- Al-Qaida's East African affiliate has released a
recruitment video targeting American blacks and Muslims that includes a
clip of presidential candidate Donald Trump calling for Muslims to be
banned from entering the United States.
The
51-minute video by the Somalia based al-Shabab militant group presents
the U.S. as a country of institutionalized racism against blacks that
also persecutes Muslims. The video presents radical Islam as the
solution.
The clip of Trump on the campaign
trail consists of his infamous proposal for the "total and complete
shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" to protect the country.
Presidential
candidate Hillary Clinton had earlier claimed that the Islamic State
group, another extremist organization, was using such quotes to recruit
followers, prompting Trump to call her a "liar."
The
quotes from Trump are bracketed by a recorded speech from
Yemeni-American cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, one of the most prominent
English-language recruiters for al-Qaida who was killed by a U.S. drone
strike in Yemen in 2011, warning that the U.S. would turn against its
Muslims.
The video was released on Twitter
Friday, according to the SITE Intel monitoring group and tells the story
of several Americans from Minnesota that joined al-Shabab and were
killed in the fighting in Somalia, holding them up as examples to be
followed.
Using footage from recent racial
conflicts in the U.S. as well as historic quotes from Malcolm X, the
video lays out the argument that blacks and Muslims will always face
discrimination in the U.S. and should join jihadi movements to fight
back.
Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security
adviser in the Obama administration, said he won't comment on any
particular presidential candidate's remarks, but the administration has
long warned that terrorist organizations will take advantage of any
notion that the U.S. is at war with Islam.
Rhodes
said he would hope that American send a message that rejects the notion
that the U.S. and Islam are at war, and instead emphasize the
contributions of Muslim-Americans.
"We're at
war with terrorists. We're not at war with Islam," Rhodes said. "The
terrorists want us to act like we're at war with Islam. That's how they
recruit people. That's how they stir up grievances. To defeat
terrorists, we need to kill terrorists on the battlefield, but we also
need to defeat this narrative that allows them to recruit people."
Al-Shabab
is fighting the internationally-backed Somali government. It was pushed
out of Mogadishu in 2011 with the help of African Union troops.
The
militants have still carried out numerous guerrilla attacks in Somalia
and the countries contributing troops, including Kenya, Djibouti and
Uganda.
Trump, who is leading in polls in the
race to be the Republican candidate in next year's presidential
election, has been rebuked by both Democratic and Republican candidates
for their parties' nomination, for his proposed ban on Muslims in early
December.
Clinton's campaign declined to comment on the video.
