Trump vows 'Cold War' terror fight

Donald Trump on Monday laid out a US blueprint for defeating global terrorism in partnership with Nato and Middle East allies, demanding extreme restrictions on immigration and likening the fight to the Cold War.

The Republican nominee, who is tanking in the polls following weeks of self-inflicted disasters, made his pitch to be a security strongman as the Democratic vice president accused him of imperiling the lives of Americans.

"We will defeat radical Islamic terrorism just as we have defeated every threat we faced at every age," said Trump in Ohio, a battleground state considered essential to winning the US presidential election.

Watering down his highly contested assertion that Barack Obama and Clinton created the so-called Islamic State extremist group, Trump said IS was "the direct result of policy decisions" made by the president and former secretary of state, referencing chaos in Iraq and Libya.

The real-estate tycoon and former reality TV star promised to end the US policy of "nation building" and called for a "new approach" in partnership with foreign allies to "halt the spread of radical Islam."

At home he demanded new immigration screening, saying that the perpetrators of a series of attacks in the United States -- including the September 11, 2001, hijackings, the 2013 Boston bombings and the recent mass shooting in an Orlando nightclub -- involved "immigrants or the children of immigrants."