A candidate running to unseat Rep. Ilhan Omar slammed the freshman lawmaker for comments she made this week about the United States’s relationship with Saudi Arabia.
“Saudi Arabia sends a terrorist to train with our military, yet most of our leaders are whitewashing Saudi ties to another attack on America,” Omar tweeted Monday. “If this was Iran we would be calling for accountability.”
Omar continued: “Why can’t we hold the biggest exporter of terrorism in the world accountable?”
Saudi Arabia sends a terrorist to train with our military, yet most of our leaders are whitewashing Saudi ties to another attack on America. If this was Iran we would be calling for accountability.
Why can’t we hold the biggest exporter of terrorism in the world accountable?
— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) May 18, 2020
Omar was making reference to an announcement from the Justice Department this week that the terrorist who opened fire at a military training facility in 2019 in Pensacola, Florida, had contact with al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula before the attack.
Dalia al Aqidi, a Republican and immigrant from Iraq looking to unseat Omar as representative for Minnesota’s 5th District, said the congresswoman was providing a false reading of history in the Middle East.
“Ms. Omar has repeatedly shown she will support any American adversary and sacrifice any ally if it furthers her revisionist agenda,” Aqidi told the Washington Examiner. “In her twisted telling of history, she apparently cannot tell the difference between Iran, a state sponsor of terror, and Saudi Arabia, an ally that is against al Qaeda. That she spouts such dangerous nonsense while holding a seat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee should be a wake-up call to all Americans and the residents of our district in Minnesota.”
Omar, a liberal Democrat, has been sharply critical of Saudi Arabia since being elected to Congress.
“Are you saying we should hold the people who voted for you accountable for sending to D.C., a supporter of terrorist groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, Quds Forces, and the Muslim Brotherhood?” Aqidi said. “In 2011, Iran tried to blow up a restaurant in Washington, D.C., just to kill the Saudi ambassador. The Obama administration’s brand of accountability was to give the regime in Tehran over $100 billion as part of its ill-conceived 2015 nuclear agreement, which the regime used to further support terrorist operations throughout the Middle East.”
