UNITED STATES (REUTERS) - Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Wednesday (Sept 30) that if elected president, he will send Syrian refugees in the US back.

"I'm putting the people on notice that are coming here from Syria as part of this mass migration, that if I win, if I win, they're going back," Mr Trump told the cheering crowd. "We can't afford to be nice. We're taking care of the whole world. We're losing our shirts on everything we do."

Mr Trump made the comments at a town hall-style event in Keene, New Hampshire where he also said Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad do not respect US President Barack Obama.