Trump Calls for Monitoring Mosques, Muslim Immigration Ban After Orlando Shooter Linked to Florida Mosque
Presumptive Republican nominee Donald Trump has called on surveillance on mosques across America in the wake of the Orlando gay nightclub shooting that left 49 people dead, after news emerged that the shooter, Omar Mateen, worshiped at a Florida mosque that has now been connected to two terrorists.
Trump told Fox News that the U.S. needs "intelligence gathering like we have never had before," and said that "we have to be very strong in terms of looking at the mosques."
He further told "CBS This Morning," that the Muslim community knows "who the bad apples are, where the bad seeds are."
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Speaking of a separate terror attack in California in December, where 14 people were killed, Trump said:
"Interestingly, the community, the Muslim community, the community where this maniac lived and where others lived — as an example, in San Bernardino, they found bombs all over the apartments and all over the floors. Many people saw that."
He added: "They don't report these people. The people know who the bad apples are, where the bad seeds are, and they don't report them. There's very little reporting of people like this."
Mateen, who killed 49 people and injured 50 others in his shooting spree at the Orlando nightclub, the deadliest shooting in U.S. history, reportedly worshiped at the Fort Pierce Islamic Center in Florida. The MailOnline pointed out that in 2014, another one of its former members, Moner-Muhammad Abu Salha, carried out a suicide bombing in Syria, making him one of first American citizens to be linked to mass terror overseas.
Still, Fort Pierce Imam Syed Shafeeq Rahman insisted there is no link between the teachings at his mosque, and the terror acts such men have carried out.
"This is a coincidence. There is no teaching given about extremism in this mosque. There is nothing coming in the sermon or the speeches," Rahman told WPTV on Sunday.
"The mosque did not radicalize him," the imam added. "If something radicalized him, it might be the internet."
Although the Islamic State terror group in Iraq and Syria has claimed responsibility for the Orlando nightclub attack, U.S. authorities are still investigating whether there was a viable link between the terror group and Mateen before Sunday's rampage.
In another speech on Monday, Trump insisted that despite the gravity of the tragedy, America is not helpless, and measures can be taken in the future to lessens the chances of such an attack occurring again.
"We're not acting clearly. We're not talking clearly. We have problems. If we don't get tough and if we don't get smart, and fast, we're not going to have our country anymore. There will be nothing, absolutely nothing left," Trump warned.
"The killer, whose name I will not use or ever say, was born an Afghan, of Afghan parents, who immigrated to the United States. His father published support for the Afghan Taliban, a regime who murders those who don't share radical views. And they murder plenty. The father even said he was running for president of Afghanistan," he said.
"The bottom line is that the only reason the killer was in America in the first place was because we allowed his family to come here. That is a fact and it's a fact we need to talk about. We have a dysfunctional immigration system which does not permit us to know who we let into our country and it does that permit us to protect our citizens properly."
