The leader of the Islamic State (IS) group has released a new message encouraging his followers to keep up the fight for the city of Mosul, which they are defending against Iraqi government forces, a US organization that monitors militant activity online said yesterday.
The SITE Intelligence Group said the speech purporting to be from Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was released in an audio recording, more than half an hour long, late on Wednesday.
In the recording, al-Baghdadi rallies his fighters — especially in Mosul — and is calling on them to obey orders while remaining resilient and steadfast. He urges others to carry out attacks in Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
“Oh you who seek martyrdom! Start your actions! Turn the night of the disbelievers into day,” he says. “Totally decimate their territories, and make their blood flow like rivers!”
The recording was the reclusive al-Baghdadi’s first released message to supporters since Iraqi forces launched the decisive battle to retake Mosul, the country’s second-largest city, from the IS.
The message apparently was an attempt to harness the feelings of Sunni disenfranchisement that preceded the 2014 IS takeover of Mosul, a largely Sunni city in Shiite-majority Iraq.
Using a derogatory term for Shiites, the speaker says followers of the Muslim sect want to drive “empty Iraq of Sunnis and replace them with the worst of people.”
He calls on fighters to “respond to all attacks,” and to “target all in their media and forces, and all who belong to them.”
The audio message could not be independently verified, but it was similar to recordings previously released by al-Baghdadi.
The IS group is fighting to hold Mosul as Iraq forces and allied Kurdish forces advance on the city with US-led coalition support.
The city of more than 1 million people and surrounding territory fell to IS fighters during a surprise attack in June 2014.
Al-Baghdadi visited the city after the takeover, and from inside Mosul, declared an Islamic caliphate that at one point covered nearly a third of Iraq and Syria.
His video came as Iraqi forces were poised to enter Mosul.
“To all the people of Nineveh, especially the fighters, beware of any weakness in facing your enemy,” al-Baghdadi said, referring to the northern Iraqi province of which Mosul is the capital.
The “caliphate” has been shrinking steadily since last year and Iraqi forces earlier this week reached Mosul, the jihadists’ last major stronghold in Iraq.
Rumors have abounded about the Iraqi militant leader’s health and movements, but his whereabouts are unclear.
In his latest message, which is undated but makes references to events that are at most a few weeks old, Baghdadi calls for attacks against Saudi Arabia — a favorite target of his — and Turkey.
Ankara has troops stationed at a base just outside Mosul and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s escalating rhetoric has raised fears of a unilateral Turkish intervention in Iraq.
Baghdadi also said that his followers who could not travel to Syria or Iraq should aim for Libya and urged all IS fighters to remain united in adversity.
He attempted to stir up sectarian resentment by referring to religious flags and slogans of Shiite fighters among the Iraqi forces and by accusing the country’s Sunni politicians of treason.
The recapture of Mosul by Iraqi forces could spell the end of the group’s days as a land-holding force in Iraq and deal a death blow to the “caliphate.”
The US-led coalition estimates the number of IS fighters holed up in Mosul at 3,000 to 5,000 and has warned the battle of Mosul could be long and difficult.
With an assault on the city looking imminent, aid groups said they were “bracing for the worst” and warned that the fate of a million-plus civilians still believed trapped inside Mosul was in the balance.
They have called for corridors allowing the safe escape of civilians to be opened.
Additional reporting by AFP
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not