A newspaper linked to an al Qaeda affiliate reported over the weekend that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump would mark a “drastic change” in U.S. foreign policy should he be elected president.
The report from the online al-Masra publication connected to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula offers a look into how the al Qaeda offshoot views the political campaign playing out in the U.S.
{mosads}The article compared Trump to Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, according to a SITE Intelligence Group translation published by The Wall Street Journal.
“As for the victory of Hilary Clinton, it will be an extension of the policy of Obama and the Democrats in the region, while the victory of Trump will be a drastic change in American policy towards Muslims, since the hostility that Trump bears and the Islamophobia from which he suffers will have a huge impact in the conflict in the Middle East region and the Muslim countries in general,” the al-Masra outlet reported, according to the translation.
The report said that while U.S. allies in the Middle East are apprehensive of the GOP front-runner, “some other observers see that Trump is the clearest in expressing the American opinion about Islam, but he lacks political experience,” according to the Journal.
Trump’s high profile in media has previously seen the businessman show up in material from militant groups, including as recently as last week when his image appeared in an Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) video following the Brussels attack when he referred to the city as a “horror show.”