Democratic Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar appeared to shrug off the notion that al-Qaeda is dangerous and mocked Americans who believe so in a recently-surfaced video.

WATCH:

A recently discovered video shows @IlhanMN mocking Americans for their anxiety about al-Qaeda, equating US armed forces to al-Qaeda and Hezbollah. pic.twitter.com/VBuKhAHjjE — The Reagan Battalion (@ReaganBattalion) April 11, 2019

Omar, who earned a degree in political science from the University of North Dakota in 2011, referenced a class she took about terrorism and noted that the professor appeared to have a physical reaction when he mentioned active terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda or Hezbollah.

“The thing that was interesting, in the class, was every time the professor said ‘al-Qaeda,’ his shoulders sort of went up,” Omar said, smiling as she mimicked the action and over-emphasized the words. “Al-Qaeda, you know, Hezbollah,” she laughed out loud. (RELATED: Omar Has Gotten In Hot Water Over Recent Comments About Israel)

Then she went on to note that reactions to ‘al-Qaeda’ and ‘Hezbollah’ are different than reactions to the words ‘America,’ ‘England’ or the ‘U.S. Army.’

“You don’t say ‘America’ with an intensity; you don’t say ‘England’ with an intensity; you don’t say ‘the army’ with an intensity,” she explained. “But you say these names because you want that word to carry weight.”

What Omar did not mention was the fact that she took the class prior to her graduation in 2011 — before the rise of ISIS — which suggests that al-Qaeda was the major operating terrorist organization at the time, and the United States was still actively engaged in a war with that particular group.

Osama bin Laden, the man responsible for the 9/11 attacks on U.S. soil, would not be captured until May of that year.

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