Donald Trump urged America to ‘get smart’ after two Somali refugees were arrested for trying to join ISIS – threatening to reignite his feud with Ilhan Omar, herself a former Somali refugee.
The President highlighted a case in Arizona where two young men told an undercover FBI agent that they wanted to ‘achieve martyrdom’ in the Middle East.
One plotter allegedly called for ‘another 9/11’ and said: ‘I want to be the beheading guy.’
The two were arrested on Friday at Tuscon International Airport after checking into a flight for Egypt, where they allegedly planned to join ISIS.
Trump’s intervention comes just two weeks after he told Rep. Omar and her firebrand left-wing colleagues to ‘go back’ to their supposed home countries, prompting his supporters to chant ‘send her back’ at one of the President’s rallies.
Donald Trump (left) urged America to ‘get smart’ after two Somali refugees were arrested for trying to join ISIS – threatening to reignite his feud with Ilhan Omar (right)
Trump tweeted on Tuesday morning to take aim at Somali refugees who are suspected of attempting to join ISIS in Egypt
He did not mention Omar in his Tuesday morning tweet but his comments attacking refugees are sure to play to the same crowd.
The President’s call to ‘get smart’ is a signal of the same populist, anti-immigrant agenda which he appears to believe will propel him to re-election in 2020.
Trump’s tweet used the hashtags #MAGA (Make America Great Again) and #KAG – Keep America Great, a prospective slogan for his re-election effort and a clear sign that the President’s mind is on 2020.
Omar arrived as a refugee from Somalia at the age of 10 and is now a U.S. citizen.
The two Arizona plotters, Ahmed Mahad Mohamed and Abdi Yemani Hussein, were living in Tuscon when they hatched a plan to enlist in the radical Islamist group’s branch in Sinai, prosecutors say.
Authorities say Mohamed told an undercover FBI employee during social media exchanges that he was ‘thirsty’ for the blood of disbelievers.
He also voiced a desire to become the ‘new Jihadi John’, a notorious ISIS executioner who was part of a British-born terror gang nicknamed the ‘Beatles’.
‘The best wake up call is (for the) Islamic State to get victory or another 9/11,’ Mohamed allegedly said.
During a meeting a month ago between Mohamed, Hussein and the undercover FBI employee, Hussein said he wanted to blow up the White House, it is alleged.
President Donald Trump disavowed a chant of ‘Send her back!’ against Rep. Ilhan Omar, telling reporters that he felt ‘a little badly’ for her when his fans erupted in shouts that she should leave the United States
Targets: The four congresswomen who were the subject of Mr Trump’s attack – from left, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib – at a news conference in Washington earlier this month
The two men allegedly told the undercover FBI agent, who they believed was an ISIS follower, that they wanted to ‘kill so many people’ and ‘behead those kuffar,’ or infidels, and become notorious around the world.
The two were arrested on Friday at Tuscon International Airport after picking up their boarding passes for a flight for Cairo.
Both had received government documents to travel to Egypt.
Mohamed has permanent residency status in the United States after originally arriving as a refugee from Somalia, according to court filings.
Hussein is still under refugee status.
They originally attracted the attention of investigators on social media last August when Mohamed expressed a desire to travel to Syria or Egypt to join ISIS and become a martyr.
They were charged with conspiring to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, which can bring up to 20 years in prison.
‘According to the criminal complaint, the defendants had been in communication with an FBI undercover employee whom they believed was a supporter of ISIS ideology,’ the Justice Department said.
‘These communications revealed the defendants’ desire to travel overseas in order to fight on behalf of ISIS or to conduct an attack within the United States if they were unable to travel.’
Brad Roach, attorney for Hussein, said his client is asserting his innocence and ‘looking forward to the legal process going forward.’
Tom Hartzell, an attorney for Mohamed, has yet to comment.
Trump’s rally held 8,000 and was filled to capacity; they chanted ‘Send her back!’ nine times before the president continued speaking
The Omar row erupted two weeks ago when Mr Trump took aim at the congresswomen ‘who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world’.
He suggested: ‘Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.’
While Mr Trump did not name the four, he was clearly taking aim at congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashida Tlaib – all high-profile left-wing women who are fiercely opposed to Mr Trump and his agenda.
All four are American citizens. Only Omar was born abroad.
His comments sparked waves of outrage, and the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed a resolution to condemn his ‘racist comments’.
Far from backing down, the President has intensified his attacks on the women in recent days, accusing them of ‘hating America’ and ‘spewing some of the most vile, hateful and disgusting things ever said by a politician’.
Responding to the backlash, Trump insisted he does not have a ‘racist bone in my body’.
Omar, a first-term congresswoman from Minnesota, was one of the first two Muslim women ever seated in the U.S. Congress; she has been accused of anti-Semitism
At a rally in North Carolina, Trump supporters chanted ‘send her back’ after the President criticized Omar.
The President later disavowed the comments, but did nothing to stop them while they were happening.
Trump appears to believe that the Democrats will suffer in 2020 if they are forced to embrace the four firebrand left-wingers.
Their backing for an ambitious Green New Deal has caused some division in the party, while Omar has found herself in hot water over alleged anti-Semitism in the past.
However, Trump’s strategy could also backfire, as a poll earlier this month showed a majority of Americans say his tweets were ‘un-American’.
According to the USAToday/Ipsos poll, two-thirds agree that telling minority Americans to ‘go back to where they came from’ is racist.