I have to say what I have to say: Trump shrugs off terror recruitment video clip

Donald Trump has shrugged off fresh controversy after a clip of his call for Muslims to be banned from the US was used in extremist propaganda. The Republican presidential hopeful said he had been praised for his courage in highlighting a problem that others preferred to ignore. During a TV appearance to be shown on Sunday, Mr Trump was questioned over how his comments had been framed by al-Shabab as an incentive for Muslims to join holy war. "Look, there’s a problem,“ he said. "I bring it up. Other people have called and say you have guts to bring it up because frankly it’s true and nobody wants to get involved.”

They use other people, too. What am I going to do? I have to say what I have to say.

Donald Trump

His remarks came after Somalia’s al Shabaab jihadist group featured Mr Trump in one of its recruitment videos. The al Qaeda-affiliated group used an excerpt from his speech last month calling for a “total and complete shutdown” on Muslims entering the US. The 51-minute video, which is aimed at African Americans and Muslims, depicts the US as a country of institutionalised prejudice against blacks and Islam. It uses the Trump soundbite preceded by a speech from US-born radical imam Anwar al Awlaki calling on Muslims in America to “flee the oppressive Western atmosphere for the lands of Islam”. Al-Awlaki, who Washington alleges was a senior al Qaeda operative, was killed by a US drone strike in Yemen in September 2011.

Yesterday, America was a land of slavery, segregation, lynching and Ku Klux Klan, and tomorrow, it will be a land of religious discrimination and concentration camps.

Anwar Al-Awlaki