Will hit Islamic State ‘10 times harder’: Trump
WASHINGTON/NEWYORK: President Donald Trump, leaving for an Asia tour on Friday, vowed to hit the Islamic State “ten times harder” every time it attacks the United States.
“What we’re doing is every time we are attacked from this point forward... we are hitting them ten times harder,” Trump told reporters before boarding a flight for Hawaii, his first stop before he heads out to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.
“So when we have an animal do an attack like he did the other day on the West Side of Manhattan, we are hitting them ten times harder. They claim him as a soldier, good luck. Every time they hit us, we know it is ISIS, we hit them like you folks won’t believe,” he said, referring to the suspect, Sayfullo Saipov.
On Thursday, the IS claimed responsibility for the terrorist attack in Manhattan two days earlier, that killed eight people and wounded a dozen more.
The statement was issued in the group’s weekly newsletter and called Tuesday’s rampage “one of the most prominent attacks targeting Crusaders in America.”
It described Saipov, 29, as a “soldier of the Caliphate” and went on to say that the attack was carried out in response to the group’s call to target “citizens of the Crusader countries involved in the alliance against the Islamic State”.
It was an uncharacteristically late claim for a group that in the past year has typically issued its statements within the first 24 hours after an attack.
It was also not released through its Amaq News Agency, which is usually the first to carry such statements. And it marks a break with the usual pattern of not claiming responsibility for an attack when a suspect is in custody.
During his trip, one of the issues Trump will focus on is terrorism. He is expected to bring it up when he meets Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Manila on the sidelines of the Asean Summit.
As the investigation continues in New York, federal authorities are increasingly focusing on a wedding in Florida two years ago attended by Saipov as a possible key to understanding whether he had personal ties to people connected to the IS, officials said.