Former President Donald Trump said during an interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Thursday that Osama bin Laden wasn’t a “monster” because he only “had one hit,” on US soil: The 9/11 attack that killed 3,000 Americans.
In the interview, Trump boasted about killing “nastier” terrorists than his predecessor, Barack Obama.
“Isis is tougher than the Taliban, and nastier than the Taliban. And Isis was watching, and then they were, they didn’t exist anymore,” Trump said in the interview.
“And we took out the founder of Isis, al-Baghdadi, and then of course Soleimani. Now just so you understand, Soleimani is bigger by many, many times than Osama bin Laden. The founder of Isis is bigger by many, many times, al-Baghdadi than Osama bin Laden,” he added.
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Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, an Iraqi militant who rose to become the leader of Islamic State, died after he set off a suicide vest during a raid by US special forces in northwest Syria in 2019.
Iranian general Qassem Soleimani, who led the elite Quds Force of the Revolutionary Guards in Iran, was killed in January 2020 by a US drone strike as he prepared to board an airplane in Kabul after a diplomatic visit to Afghanistan.
Bin Laden created the terror group Al Qaeda which was responsible for the 11 September 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centre that killed at least 3,000 people in the US.
He was also accused of participating in the planning of the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which killed over 200 people and was also said to be responsible for a suicide attack on the USS Cole in October 2000, which killed 17 American sailors and injured many more.
Bin Laden was killed by the US in 2011 when Barack Obama was president.
“Osama bin Laden had one hit, and it was a bad one, in New York City, the World Trade Center. But these other two guys were monsters. They were monsters. And I kept saying for years why aren’t they getting them? For years, I said it. I got them,” he said.
Trump’s comments came as US forces are bracing for more attacks after at least 95 people, including 13 American soldiers, were killed in suicide bombing outside the Kabul airport in Afghanistan on Thursday.
In 2020, Trump signed what many have called a “surrender” agreement with the Taliban, in which the US agreed to pull out US troops from Afghanistan by May 2021 and release 5,000 Taliban prisoners.
In return, the Taliban would not let Afghanistan become a safe haven for terrorist groups, the agreement stated.
Trump, however, told the radio host, that he would have “bombed the hell out of the Taliban” had they violated the agreement and “they never would have come into Kabul”.
“They just wouldn’t do it.”
In the run-up to the 20th anniversary of 9/11, Donald Trump is doing interviews with conservative media – in this case, Hugh Hewitt – suggesting Osama Bin Laden wasn't that big of a deal and wasn't a "monster." pic.twitter.com/3xJXVn2AIM
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) August 26, 2021
