ISIS is celebrating Donald Trump's win in US election, NYT reporter to NDTV.
New York:
Donald Trump, America's President-elect, may have made defeating ISIS his main campaign promise, but ISIS and Al Qaeda platforms are exulting at Mr Trump's victory, says the New York Times' Rukmini Callimachi, one of the worlds leading journalists on the ISIS beat.
In an interview to NDTV in New York, Ms Callimachi said, "basically there is a sense of celebration as if almost this (Trump) was their (ISIS') candidate. One ISIS supporter yesterday on Telegram - which is an encrypted messaging service - was posting that Trump's victory is 'poetic justice'."
She said "what they are referring to is of course (Donald) Trump's rhetoric which has been very anti-Muslim, whereas the Democratic campaign's talking points have been that this is not a fight against Islam as a whole, but it is a fight against a terrorist group. Trump has drawn the lines and he has made it clear that he propose to impose a ban on Muslims. One of ISIS' key ideas is that they are the protectors of Sunni Muslims and it is only in that territory that the Sunni Muslims will be safe."
This comes even as the Trump campaign reinstated on his website his controversial claim to ban the entry of all Muslim's into the United States.
That promise, in the form of a press release, had briefly disappeared from his site in the past 24 hours.
Mr Callimachi said that recent studies have found countries which have a record of abusing Muslims are likely to see higher levels of ISIS recruitment, like France.
In an interview to NDTV in New York, Ms Callimachi said, "basically there is a sense of celebration as if almost this (Trump) was their (ISIS') candidate. One ISIS supporter yesterday on Telegram - which is an encrypted messaging service - was posting that Trump's victory is 'poetic justice'."
She said "what they are referring to is of course (Donald) Trump's rhetoric which has been very anti-Muslim, whereas the Democratic campaign's talking points have been that this is not a fight against Islam as a whole, but it is a fight against a terrorist group. Trump has drawn the lines and he has made it clear that he propose to impose a ban on Muslims. One of ISIS' key ideas is that they are the protectors of Sunni Muslims and it is only in that territory that the Sunni Muslims will be safe."
This comes even as the Trump campaign reinstated on his website his controversial claim to ban the entry of all Muslim's into the United States.
That promise, in the form of a press release, had briefly disappeared from his site in the past 24 hours.
Mr Callimachi said that recent studies have found countries which have a record of abusing Muslims are likely to see higher levels of ISIS recruitment, like France.
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