Reclusive militant leader heard on new recording
CAIRO — The leader of the Islamic State group urged followers to burn their enemies everywhere and target “media centers of the infidels,” according to an audio recording released Thursday that the extremists said was by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
The reclusive leader of Islamic State, who has appeared in public only once, also pledged to continue fighting and lavished praise on jihadists despite their loss of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul in July.
The recording was released by the Islamic State-run al-Furqan outlet, which has in the past released messages from al-Baghdadi and other top figures of the extremist group. The voice in the more than 46-minute-long audio sounded much like previous recordings of alBaghdadi. His last previous purported message was released in November, also in an audio recording.
“You soldiers of the caliphate, heroes of Islam and carriers of banners: light a fire against your enemies,” said al-Baghdadi, a shadowy cleric who has been surrounded by controversy since the terror group emerged from al Qaeda in Iraq, its forerunner.
Russian officials said in June there was a “high probability” that al-Baghdadi had died in a Russian air strike on the outskirts of the Syrian city of Raqqa, the group’s de facto capital. U.S. officials later said they believed he is still alive.
Al-Baghdadi’s whereabouts are unknown, but he is believed to be in Islamic State’s dwindling territory in eastern Syria. The Islamic State-held cities of Raqqa and Deir el-Zour are under siege and probably too dangerous for him to hide in. Some Islamic State leadership is believed to have gone to the nearby town of Mayadeen, and the group still holds a stretch of the Euphrates River from Deir el-Zour to the Iraqi border, as well as remote desert areas along the border.