FSTDT

'He is the founder of ISIS': Trump repeatedly claims Obama is to blame for creating the terror group and calls Hillary its 'co-founder'

Donald Trump claimed Wednesday night during a raucous south Florida campaign rally that President Barack Obama and his first secretary of state Hillary Clinton were the 'founder' and 'co-founder' of the ISIS terror army.

His stunning claim came at the end of a pointed lecture recounting the conditions that led the regional militant group called al-Qaeda in Iraq to grow its ambitions – and blaming the president for creating the power vacuum that terrorists rushed in to fill.

'In many respects, you know, they honor President Obama. ISIS is honoring President Obama,' Trump said, working himself into a lather at the end of a full day of campaigning in two states.

'He is the founder of ISIS. He is the founder of ISIS, okay? He's the founder! He founded ISIS!' he continued, always crescendoing.

'And I would say,' Trump added more solemnly, getting to his election-year point: 'The co-founder would be crooked Hillary Clinton. Co-founder! Crooked Hillary Clinton! And that's what it's about!'

Trump has made claims before that Obama precipitously pulled U.S. forces out of Iraq on a predetermined date, giving ISIS room to breathe and expand.

But Wednesday marked the first time he has credited the current White House with the creation of the self-described 'Islamic State.'

Minutes later in what may be interpreted as a dog-whistle to his Islamoskeptic fans, Trump uttered another rarity, referring to the president with his Arab middle name.

Responding to complaints that he had misinterpreted the recent geopolitics of Russia and Ukraine, he declared that the Crimea 'was taken' by Russian President Vladimir Putin 'during the administration of Barack Hussein Obama.'

Trump's figurative case that Obama 'founded' ISIS rests on his contention that the president disrupted a delicate balance of power between Iran and Iraq, two countries afflicted by more than eight decades of border disputes.

'We had a president who decided he would announce a date, and he was gonna get out by that date. The problem is, the enemy, which really turned out to be ISIS, the enemy was sitting back and actually didn't believe that this could be happening,' he said.

Trump criticized Obama for failing to leave 'some small forces' behind in Iraq to keep order.

The result, he said, was predictable chaos with Iran the dominant aggressor but ISIS reclaiming dominance in broad swaths of Iraq.

'You know, for years and years these two countries fought,' he said. 'Decades and decades and decades they'd fight. That's what they did – they'd fight.'

'And they'd fight for four years and stop. Then they'd fight for four more years. Saddam Hussein would drop gas, everybody would complain. Tremendous, tremendous carnage. And they'd stop. Then they'd start.'

'It would never change,' in Trump's reading of history, 'because you had military powers of essentially the same strength.'

'And then,' he said, President George W. Bush invaded Iraq and 'decimated one of the powers, and we unleashed fury all over the Middle East. And it was a terrible mistake.'

'And then Obama came in,' he continued. 'And normally you want to clean up. He made a bigger mess out of it. He made such a mess. And then you had Hillary with Libya. So sad.'

During the rally he also unveiled a number of new signs including one pitting himself against Clinton showing how much of their campaigns were funded by hedge funders.

He also unveiled a chart showing home ownership rates plummeting over the years.

US refugee ban: Trump decried for 'stomping on' American values

Donald Trump is facing strong criticism from aid organisations after ending his first week as president with a ban on all Syrian refugees entering the US and a halt on arrivals from a string of predominantly Muslim countries.

The president signed an executive order to stop all refugee arrivals for four months – and Syrian arrivals indefinitely – on Friday, hours after meeting the British prime minister, Theresa May, and reportedly reaffirming his commitment to Nato.

The move, which he described as “extreme vetting” intended to “keep terrorists out”, was more severe than expected. It will amount to a de facto ban on Muslims traveling to the US from parts of the Middle East and north Africa by prioritising refugee claims “on the basis of religious-based persecution”.

The order has already reportedly blocked people from flying into US airports or clearing customs after arriving in the country. The Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee said people who had landed after the order was enacted at 4.30pm had been blocked and told they had to return to their point of origin.

Named the Protection of the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States, the order places a 90-day block on entry to the US from citizens from Iran, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, Libya and Somalia. It is unclear whether the measure would apply to citizens of those countries on trips abroad who already have permission to live and work in the US.

The order also caps the total number of refugees entering the US in 2017 to 50,000, less than half the previous year’s figure of 117,000.

The United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) and International Organization for Migration (IOM) called on the Trump administration to continue offering asylum to people fleeing war and persecution, saying its resettlement programme was vital.

“The needs of refugees and migrants worldwide have never been greater and the US resettlement programme is one of the most important in the world,” the Geneva-based agencies said in a joint statement.

They said the US’s acceptance of refugees had offered a double benefit, “first by rescuing some of the most vulnerable people in the world and second by enabling them to enrich their new societies”.

Chuck Schumer, Democratic leader in the Senate, said: “Tears are running down the cheeks of the Statue of Liberty tonight as a grand tradition of America, welcoming immigrants, that has existed since America was founded, has been stomped upon.

“Taking in immigrants and refugees is not only humanitarian but has also boosted our economy and created jobs decade after decade. This is one of the most backward and nasty executive orders that the president has issued.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations announced it would be filing a federal lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the order “because its apparent purpose and underlying motive is to ban people of the Islamic faith from Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States”.

“There is no evidence that refugees – the most thoroughly vetted of all people entering our nation – are a threat to national security,” said Lena F Masri, the council’s litigation director. “This is an order that is based on bigotry, not reality.”

Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani campaigner for girls’ education who survived an attempted murder by the Taliban when she was 15, said she was “heartbroken” that America was “turning its back on a proud history of welcoming refugees and immigrants – the people who helped build your country, ready to work hard in exchange for a fair chance at a new life”.

She added: “I am heartbroken that Syrian refugee children, who have suffered through six years of war by no fault of their own, are singled out for discrimination.”

Madeline Albright, the former US secretary of state, said: “There is no fine print on the Statue of Liberty. America must remain open to people of all faiths and backgrounds.”

She was referring the inscription of the iconic New York landmark: “Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

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As well as halting Syrian arrivals indefinitely, the president’s order suspends the admittance of all refugees to the US for 120 days. In Syria alone, the nearly six-year war under Bashar al-Assad’s regime has led to more than 500,000 civilian deaths and displaced an estimated 11 million Syrians.

Although Trump administration officials continue to insist the president’s actions are not targeted at any one faith, the text of the order made explicit that, when the 120-day suspension ended, the US government would prioritize religious minorities in Muslim-majority countries.

It states: “Upon the resumption of USRAP [US Refugee Admissions Program] admissions, the secretary of state, in consultation with the secretary of homeland security, is further directed to make changes, to the extent permitted by law, to prioritize refugee claims made by individuals on the basis of religious-based persecution, provided that the religion of the individual is a minority religion in the individual’s country of nationality.”