Al-Furqan, the media wing of the terrorist group ISIS, has released an 46-minute long audio clip purported to be of its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
The emergence of the clip contradicts Russian claims that Baghdadi was killed in an air strike in May, claims that many - including US Defence Secretary James Mattis - denied.
Although a Reuters report said the audio was undated, the references made in it - to the North Korean nuclear crisis and to the Islamic State's defeat in Mosul (in July) - suggest that it was recorded recently.
Rita Katz, the director of SITE Intelligence Group, thinks the man in the clip is Baghdadi.
Rita Katz ✔@Rita_Katz
3) Voice definitely sounds to be #Baghdadi's based off of his speeches released previously pic.twitter.com/p3qHQuMeCI
10:01 PM - Sep 28, 2017
Katz said in a series of tweets that Baghdadi can be heard "rallying his supporters inside and outside of ISIS territory," and demanding that "lives in Mosul, Sirte, Raqqa, Ramadi and Hama not be lost in vain." She also quotes him as saying that America is "mired in huge debt and has become politically and militarily ineffective on the world stage."
Rita Katz ✔@Rita_Katz
8) #Baghdadi further states: “…#America, #Europe, and #Russia are living in a state of terror...fearing the strikes of the mujahideen
10:21 PM - Sep 28, 2017
According to a report in The
Telegraph, Baghdadi said "the US was no longer the world's only superpower
and gave North Korea's threats as evidence of American decline, as well as
Russia's domination of Syrian peace talks in Kazakhstan."
A Middle East Eye report said
Baghdadi "spent more than half of the clip discussing an ideological
debate inside ISIS and pleaded with Syrian opposition groups to stop working
with Turkey and Saudi Arabia, countries which have provided support to
anti-Assad Islamist rebel groups."
On the Western media, he
said, "Oh soldiers of Islam in every location, increase blow after blow,
and make the media centres of the infidels, and where they wage their
intellectual wars, among your targets."
©SantoshChaubey
