Washington: Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Sunday claimed that more than one-fourths of the Muslims are "very militant", in latest controversial statements adding to his anti-Muslim rhetoric.
"It's (militant Muslims) 27 per cent, could be 35 %, would go to war, the hatred is tremendous," Trump told the Fox News Sunday when asked not more than 100,000 of the 1.6 billion Muslims are fighting jihadist causes.
"You're saying that out of 1.5 billion, 100,000, let me tell you, whoever did that survey was about as wrong as you can get," Trump said.
"Why don't you take a look at the Pew poll that came out very recently or fairly recently, where I think the number... it's something like 27% are really very militant about going after things
"And you'll have to look at it. They did a very strong study. Let's see what it says. But it's a very significant number. It's not 100,000 people, I can tell you that. It's a ridiculous number," he claimed.
The 69-year-old reality show star and billionaire has continued with his anti-Muslim rhetoric, stoking controversies one after another and drawing flak from the world over including his party rivals.
The remarks come days after he said he thinks "Islam hates us" and asserted that those having hatred against the US cannot be allowed to enter the country.
He made headlines in December when he called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the US "until our country's representatives can figure out what is going on".
In his remarks today, he said "It would be easier for me to say, "Oh, no, everybody loves us." But there's something going on. There's a big problem. And radical Islamic terrorism is taking place all over the world."
"You look at what happened in Paris, you look at what happened in California recently with the 14 people killed by co-workers, by people where they gave 'em baby showers and then they walk in and they kill 'em, they shoot 'em. They had no guns, they had no weapons. They had no nothing. They shot them. They killed them all," he argued.
Trump said that he has heard the figure of 20,000 to 30,000 troops needed to defeat ISIS in the Middle East.
"But now, you have people chopping off heads, you have people drowning 40 and 50 people in steel cages at a time, and now, we have to do something. The reason we have to do it is because of the power of weaponry. They're looking to get weapons, and they're looking to acquire weapons that are going to be very, very horrible for our country if they ever do it," Trump said.
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