'We must not allow ISIS to return' to US: Trump

WASHINGTON: America must not let Islamic State (ISIS) jihadists return to or enter the US after they are beaten overseas, President Donald Trump said Tuesday, hours after a deadly New York attack.

“We must not allow ISIS to return, or enter, our country after defeating them in the Middle East and elsewhere. Enough!” Trump tweeted.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio called the attack an “act of terror” but authorities have not definitively linked the suspect who was detained afterward to IS.

Eight people were killed and numerous others wounded when the suspect rammed a pickup truck into pedestrians in Lower Manhattan and collided with a school bus, officials said.

We must not allow ISIS to return, or enter, our country after defeating them in the Middle East and elsewhere. Enough!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 31, 2017

Trump earlier decried the attack as an act of madness.

“In NYC, looks like another attack by a very sick and deranged person,” Trump tweeted.

“Law enforcement is following this closely. NOT IN THE U.S.A.!”

IS has been dealt a string of defeats across Iraq and Syria in recent months, with authorities worried that fleeing foreign fighters might return home.

President Donald Trump’s top national security aides pushed back on Monday against U.S. lawmakers calling for a new congressional war authorization, saying it would be a mistake to impose geographic or time limits on the campaign against Islamic State and other militant groups.

“War is fundamentally unpredictable,” Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis told a Senate hearing about a potential new authorization for the use of military force, or Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF), Congress’ most significant step in years toward taking back control of its constitutional right to authorize war.

Mattis and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson both told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee it would put U.S. forces at risk if existing authorizations were repealed without new ones in place. They said they do not need a new AUMF to justify ongoing military action.

Republican and Democratic members of Congress have argued for years that Congress ceded too much authority over the military to the White House after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. But divisions over how much control they should exert over the Pentagon have stymied repeated efforts to pass a new AUMF. – Agencies