The US real estate mogul told popular conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Thursday that it was "ridiculous" to be questioned about who leads such groups as the Shiite militia Hezbollah, the Palestinian Hamas or Al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate the Al-Nusra Front.
During their interview, when asked about the leader of the Quds special forces of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards, General Qassem Suleimani, he appeared not to pick up on the reference, replying "The Kurds, by the way, have been horribly mistreated."
"As far as the individual players, of course I don't know them. I've never met them. I haven't been, you know, in a position to meet them," he said.
He argued that the leaders of such groups could "be all gone" by the time the next US president takes office.
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Should he win in November 2016, Trump added, "the day after the election I'll know more about it than you will ever know."
On Friday on MSNBC, Trump again complained about the questioning by Hewitt and called him a "third-rate radio announcer."
Hewitt insisted during their interview he was not asking "gotcha" questions, but said it would be appropriate to discuss such groups during Republican presidential debates -- the next of which he will be moderating on CNN on September 16.
Trump surged into the lead of the Republican race shortly after declaring his White House campaign in June.
He has used provocative rhetoric against immigrants, lashed out at China, and insisted he is the most military-loving candidate of the lot, but he has yet to lay out detailed foreign policy prescriptions.