Howard Dean, the former head of the Democratic National Committee, said he does not believe that three gunmen who shouted “Allahu Akbar” during a shooting spree in which 10 journalists and two cops were murdered should be considered to be Muslim.
“I stopped calling these people Muslim terrorists,” Dean said Wednesday during a segment on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” (RELATED: Muslims Murder 10 Journalists, 2 Cops In Paris)
“They’re about as Muslim as I am. I mean, they have no respect for anybody else’s life,” continued Dean, the former governor of Vermont.
“That’s not what the Koran says. You know, Europe has an enormous radical problem. I think ISIS is a cult — not an Islamic cult. I think it’s a cult. And I think that you’ve got to deal with these people.”
Dean was responding to breaking news that three masked gunmen had stormed the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical magazine which had recently published cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
After killing 10 during the office shooting — including four cartoonists — the masked gunmen began shooting outside on the streets of Paris.
There they killed two police officers. The gunmen, wielding AK-47s, were heard on video shouting “Allahu Akbar,” which translates to “God is great” in Arabic.
Witnesses said that the gunmen also yelled out that they sought to “avenge the Prophet” and said they were affiliated with Al-Qaeda in Yemen.
“I think you have to treat these people as basically mass murderers, but I do not think we should accord them any religious respect because, whatever they’re claiming their motivation is clearly is a twisted, cultish mind,” Dean continued.
He also broached the topic of gun control.
“In regarding the United States — regarding how guns get into the hands of the kind of people that killed the two police officers here, here, two weeks ago — France has tremendous gun control laws, and yet these people were able to get Kalashnikovs.”
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