Donald Trump comments used by Somali extremists to recruit followers
Trump in December called for 'complete shutdown' on Muslims entering U.S.
A clip of Donald Trump calling for Muslims to be banned from entering the United States is being used by al-Qaeda's East African affiliate in a recruitment video targeting American blacks and Muslims.
The 51-minute video by the Somalia based al-Shabaab 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, who is seeking the Republican nomination for this year's U.S. presidential election, shows him proposing the "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" to protect the country.
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-Qaeda, warning that the U.S. would turn against its Muslims. Al-Awlaki was killed by a U.S. drone strike in Yemen in 2011,
The video was released on Twitter on Friday, according to the SITE Intel monitoring group and tells the story of several Americans from Minnesota who joined al-Shabaab and were killed in the fighting in Somalia, holding them up as examples to be followed.
Hillary Clinton, who is seeking the Democratic Party nomination, had earlier claimed that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria group, another extremist organization, was using Trump's quotes to recruit followers.