ISIS leader Baghdadi appears in 1st video since 2014
The elusive chief of the ISIS group Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi has
purportedly appeared for the first time in five years in a propaganda video
released Monday by the jihadist organization.
It is unclear when the footage was filmed, but the man said
to be Baghdadi referred in the past tense to the months-long fight for Baghouz,
ISIS's final bastion in eastern Syria, which ended last month.
"The battle for Baghouz is over," the man said,
sitting cross-legged on a cushion and addressing three men whose faces have
been blurred.
But he insisted that ISIS's operations against the West were
part of a "long battle," and that ISIS would "take revenge"
on members who had been killed.
"There will be more to come after this battle," he
said.
Baghdadi, 47, had a long grey beard that appeared dyed with
henna and spoke slowly, often pausing for several seconds in the middle of his
sentences.
He appeared for the first and last time in public in Mosul
in 2014, where he declared an Islamic "caliphate" in the swathes of
territory ISIS then held in Syria and Iraq.
He was reported killed or injured multiple times since then.
His last voice recording to his supporters was released in
August, eight months after Iraq announced it had defeated ISIS and as US-backed
forces closed in next door in Syria.