[REUTERS] Islamic State...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling
Allaharound with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not
reallyMoslems....
leader His Supreme Immensity, Caliph of the Faithful and Galactic Overlord, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi
...formerly merely the head of ISIL and a veteran of the Bagram jailhouse. Looks like a new messiah to bajillions of Moslems, like just another dead-eyed mass murder to the rest of us...
exhorted followers on Thursday to stand fast and keep fighting in his first purported audio communication in almost a year during which his jihadist group lost much of its self-proclaimed "caliphate".
The audio, partly dedicated to religious scriptures, came after several reports Baghdadi had been killed. His last recording was in November 2016, two weeks after the start of the battle to recapture the city of djinn-infested Mosul
... the home of a particularly ferocious and hairy djinn...
from Islamic State (IS).
The date of the 46-minute recording, released via the al-Furqan news organization, was not clear. But in it, Baghdadi makes an apparent reference to recent events including
North Korean threats against Japan and United States and the recapture two months ago of Mosul by U.S.-backed Iraqi forces.Since Baghdadi proclaimed the caliphate stretching across Iraq and Syria in 2014, Iraqi forces have retaken a string of cities in western and northern Iraq including Mosul, where Baghdadi made his announcement from the city’s El Nuri mosque.
Western-backed Syrian forces are also thrusting into the eastern Syrian city of Raqqa, Islamic State’s operational headquarters from where it plotted many of the attacks that have killed hundreds of people around the world.
"Beware of retreat, or the feeling of defeat, beware of negotiations or surrender. Do not lay down your arms," Baghdadi said, referring to followers in Iraq, Syria, Soddy Arabia
...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face...
, North Africa and elsewhere in Africa.
"Oh Soldiers of the Caliphate, fan the flames of war on your enemies, take it to them and besiege them in every corner, and stand fast and courageous."
Baghdadi also referenced Western media, saying: "Oh soldiers of Islam in every location, increase blow after blow, and make the media centers of the infidels, and where they wage their intellectual wars, among your targets."
The fall of Mosul in July effectively marked the end of the Iraqi half of Baghdadi’s "caliphate" even though Islamic State continues to fight in some territory outside of Mosul, the largest city they came to control in both Iraq and Syria.
An IS branch in Libya was also defeated last year in the city of Sirte, where they had set up a North African beachhead in 2014. In Egypt’s northern Sinai, another affiliated murderous Moslem group is still fighting Egyptian military forces.
"With God’s will and his strength, we are staying determined, patient...The abundance of killing will not stop us," Baghdadi said in the audio recording.
Officials have said they believed it could take years to capture or kill Baghdadi as he is thought to be hiding in a vast swathe of sparsely-populated desert between Mosul and Raqqa, where attacking drones are easy to spot.
The United States has offered a $25 million bounty for information that would locate Baghdadi.
Russia’s defense ministry said earlier this year it