"Political correctness kills," retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn said during an interview on "Fox and Friends" while discussing this weekend's violence in the U.S. "It will cause death, and we can't have that."

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"You don't have a lot of people yelling 'Jesus Christ' putting a knife in somebody's body or putting a knife in somebody's head," Flynn continued. "This is a different enemy. It's an enemy that we have not, frankly, understood in a couple of administrations, and we definitely don't understand right now."

Flynn's remarks came after nine people were injured in a stabbing attack on Saturday night at a shopping mall in Minnesota, where the attacker reportedly made references to Allah and asked at least one person if they were Muslim before attacking them, police said

The attacker was shot dead by an off-duty policy officer.

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) on Sunday called the attacker a "soldier" of the group as the FBI investigated it as a potential act of terrorism.