Donald Trump has used his latest campaign rally to accuse Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama of being responsible for the rise of Islamic State.
Speaking in Biloxi, Mississippi, the Republican presidential hopeful implied that the Obama administration should have heeded his call for the US to seize oil assets controlled by Isis but had instead allowed the terror group to prosper.
“I’ve predicted a lot of things, you have to say, including, ‘Get the oil, take the oil, keep the oil.’ Right? I’ve been saying that for three years, and everybody said, ‘Oh, I can’t do that. I mean, this is a sovereign country. There is no country!” Trump said.
“They’ve created Isis. Hillary Clinton created Isis with Obama,” Trump said.
On the day when much of the Muslim world expressed fury at the execution of 47 Shia prisoners in Saudi Arabia, including the prominent cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, Trump also accused Iran of wanting to take over its neighbour.
“In Tehran, they’re burning down the Saudi embassy, you see that?” Trump said as he opened his remarks. “Now, what that is is Iran wants to take over Saudi Arabia. They always have. They want the oil, OK? They’ve always wanted that.”
He made no comment at the rally about an al-Shabaab propaganda video, released on Friday, which featured footage of him calling for Muslims to be banned from the US.
But, in an interview with CBS on Saturday, Trump was unrepentant.
“I have to say what I have to say,” he said.
“And you [know] what I have to say? There’s a problem. We have to find out what is a problem. And we have to solve that problem.”
Trump spent much of the rally attacking the way he was treated by the media. During the rally, he lashed out at the media, saying the press was “so damn unfair ... terrible”.
Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama created Isis, says Donald Trump - VIDEO
04 January 2016
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Republican uses a rally in Biloxi to accuse his rival of allowing the terror group to prosper, but fails to mention his appearance in a militant recruitment video
