With Iraqi troops battling inside the Islamic State (IS) bastion of Mosul, the militants’ leader told his followers there could be no retreat in a “total war” against the forces arrayed against them.
Expressing confidence that his IS fighters would prevail against Shia Islam, Western “crusaders” and the Sunni “apostate” countries of Turkey and Saudi Arabia, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi called on the jihadists to “wreak havoc”. “This raging battle and total war, and the great jihad that the state of Islam is fighting today only increases our firm belief, God willing, and our conviction that all this is a prelude to victory,” Baghdadi said in an audio recording released online by supporters on Thursday.
In his first audio message released in nearly a year, Baghdadi called on the population of Mosul’s Nineveh Province “not to weaken in the jihad” against the “enemies of God”.
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Addressing those who might consider fleeing, he said: “Know that the value of staying on your land with honour is a thousand times better than the price of retreating with shame.” The exact location of Baghdadi is not clear. British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said intelligence suggested that Baghdadi had “vacated the scene”, but he did not say where the IS leader might be.
In a sectarian speech, Baghdadi called for attacks on both Turkey and Saudi Arabia, saying the Sunni countries had both sided with the enemy in a war he said was targeting Sunni Islam. — Reuters