Isis leader calls for attacks on West
Isis leader Abu Bakr al- Baghdadi has exhorted followers across the world to wage attacks against the West and to keep fighting in Iraq, Syria and elsewhere.
The message released yesterday was his first purported audio communication in almost a year during which his jihadist group lost much of its self- proclaimed “caliphate”.
The audio, partly dedicated to religious scriptures, came after several reports Baghdadi had been killed. His last recording was in November last year, two weeks after the start of the battle to recapture the city of Mosul from Isis ( Islamic State).
“Oh Soldiers of the Caliphate, fan the flames of war on your enemies, take it to them and besiege them in every corner, and stand fast and courageous,” Baghdadi said.
The date of the 46- minute recording, released via the Al- Furqan news organisation, was not clear. But in it, Baghdadi makes an apparent reference to recent events including North Korean threats against Japan and United States and the recapture t wo months ago of Mosul by USbacked Iraqi forces.
Since Baghdadi proclaimed the caliphate stretching across Iraq and Syria in 2014, Iraqi forces have retaken a string of cities in western and northern Iraq including Mosul. Western- backed Syrian forces are also thrusting into the eastern Syrian city of Raqqa, Isis’ operational headquarters from where it plotted many of the attacks that have killed hundreds of people around the world.
Baghdadi also called for attacks on Western media, saying to “make the media centres of the infidels, from where they wage their intellectual wars, among the targets”.
Officials have said they believed it could take years to capture or kill Baghdadi as he is thought to be hiding in a vast swathe of sparsely- populated desert between Mosul and Raqqa.
The US has offered a $ 25 million ($ 34.7m) bounty for information that would locate Baghdadi.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said earlier this year that it might have killed Baghdadi in an airstrike on a gathering of Isis commanders on the outskirts of Raqqa. But US officials said they could not corroborate the death and other Western as well as Iraqi officials were sceptical.