Ilhan Omar Challenger Dalia Al-Aquidi Launches Scorching Campaign Ad

Fox News has more to say on why Dalia is running for Congress:

Dalia al-Aqidi is a Muslim Iraqi refugee who says she's tired of hearing Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., play identity politics while using language she believes is "dividing" America.

So she is launching a campaign to unseat her in November.

Al-Aqidi, who discussed her newly launched campaign in an interview with Fox News, joins a growing field of Republicans looking to take on Omar. "She needs to be stopped," al-Aqidi told Fox News in a phone interview. "I truly believe that I'm strong enough to beat her at her own game."

She explained that in a race between the two of them, Omar would be limited in using her background as a Muslim woman who came to the U.S. as a refugee from Somalia to distinguish them — because they are "basically the same" in that backstory, she said.

Al-Aqidi decried the use of identity politics on the campaign trail.

"Muslims, Christians, Jews are all Americans," she said, while going on to blast Omar's past comments that have been labeled anti-Semitic.

"Every time she opens her mouth she says something either anti-U.S. or anti-Semitic," al-Aqidi said. Omar has apologized for past tweets about Israel that played on anti-Semitic tropes.

Dalia al-Aqidi is a Muslim Iraqi refugee who wants to unseat Minnesota congresswoman Rep. Ilhan Omar. She'll need to beat five challengers in the Republican Primary before she can face-off with Omar.

Dalia al-Aqidi is a Muslim Iraqi refugee who says she's tired of hearing Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., play identity politics while using language she believes is "dividing" America.

So she is launching a campaign to unseat her in November.

Al-Aqidi, who discussed her newly launched campaign in an interview with Fox News, joins a growing field of Republicans looking to take on Omar. "She needs to be stopped," al-Aqidi told Fox News in a phone interview. "I truly believe that I'm strong enough to beat her at her own game."

'I truly believe that I'm strong enough to beat her at her own game.'

— Dalia al-Aqidi, GOP challenger seeking Rep. Ilhan Omar's seat

She explained that in a race between the two of them, Omar would be limited in using her background as a Muslim woman who came to the U.S. as a refugee from Somalia to distinguish them — because they are "basically the same" in that backstory, she said.

Al-Aqidi decried the use of identity politics on the campaign trail.

"Muslims, Christians, Jews are all Americans," she said, while going on to blast Omar's past comments that have been labeled anti-Semitic.

"Every time she opens her mouth she says something either anti-U.S. or anti-Semitic," al-Aqidi said. Omar has apologized for past tweets about Israel that played on anti-Semitic tropes.      

Al-Aqidi also alleged that Omar is more interested in raising her own political profile than helping her constituents.

"I am loyal to the country that gave me a chance, gave me a brighter future," she said, claiming that Omar "continually tries to weaken the country and divide us."

IBT also said:

ep. Ilhan Omar, one of the members of the 'Squad' of progressives in the Democratic party, is facing a different kind of GOP challenger in November's election -- an Iraqi Muslim refugee.

Dalia al-Aqidi, who is also a former White House correspondent, said Omar "needs to be stopped" and called out the Somali-born lawmaker for using identity politics.

Omar, a freshman congresswoman from Minnesota, has angered the Jewish community with her expressions of anti-Semitism in the past. In March last year, the House Of Representatives voted to condemn anti-Semitic comments by Omar as part of a broader resolution decrying bigotry. Omar was not named in the resolution,

"I truly believe that I'm strong enough to beat her at her own game," al-Aqidi told Fox News. Al-Aqidi fled Saddam Hussein's Iraq along with her family when she was in her 20s. Omar fled Somalia with her family at age nine.