The leader of Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has appeared in a video for the first time in five years, calling for a “battle of attrition” against the West.
With a Kalashnikov rifle by his right hand, the 47-year-old hailed the militants who fought to defend the Iraqi town of Baghuz, the last stronghold of IS, where the self-proclaimed caliphate came to an end last month, and paid tribute to the suicide bombers who carried out the Easter attacks in Sri Lanka.
Baghdadi, who is rumoured to have been seriously injured in an airstrike in 2015, “may be sitting to hide a disability,” says The Times, though his posture also “appears to mimic, perhaps deliberately, a well-known photograph of Osama bin Laden”.
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The Daily Telegraph says Western intelligence agencies “will be scouring the video for any scraps of information which could reveal his location”.
Baghdadi has not been seen since 2014, when he declared from Mosul the creation of a “caliphate” across parts of Syria and Iraq. In the new video he says the attacks in Sri Lanka were carried out as revenge for the fall of Baghuz.
“The battle for Baghuz is over,” he says. “The brothers will take vengeance, as they will not forget it as long as they have blood in their veins, and there will be a battle after this one. In fact, the battle of Islam and its people against the crusaders and their followers is a long battle.”
He fuelled speculation that IS plans to attempt terrorist attacks across a broad field, rather than focusing on retaking territory in a single location, speaking of jihadists in a number of territories, including Mali, Burkina Faso and Afghanistan.
An estimated 15,000 to 30,000 IS fighters remain in Iraq and Syria after the fall of the caliphate.
Daniel Byman, a Brookings Institution scholar and author, told the New Yorker the video is “a way for [Baghdadi] both to continue his claim to the leadership of the jihadist movement and to give his followers heart in what is a dispiriting time for them”.
Intelligence analyst Rita Katz said it was a setback that “Baghdadi is able to re-emerge to his supporters and reaffirm the group’s us-versus-the-world message after all the progress made against the group”.
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