Daesh releases recording it says was made by its leader

New York: Amid reports that its reclusive leader had been injured and possibly incapacitated, the Daesh terrorist group released an audio statement on Thursday it said was from the man himself, Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi.

If authentic, the 34-minute recording would be the first public address by Al Baghdadi in six months, and it comes after recent reports by some news organisations that he suffered shrapnel wounds damaging his spine during a coalition air strike in Iraq.

In the recording, the speaker identifies himself as Al Baghdadi and tells Muslims they have two choices: Either travel to join Daesh, or else carry out attacks in their home countries.

That admonition is a continuation of the group’s call for so-called lone-wolf attacks that was first articulated by Daesh’s spokesman last year — a call that has been answered by gunmen in Australia, France, Canada and, possibly, in Garland, Texas.

Every Muslim in every place needs to “migrate to the Islamic State or fight in his land wherever that may be,” the speaker says, according to a translation provided by SITE Intelligence, which tracks extremist propaganda.

Daesh released the recording online on Thursday with translations in English, French, German, Russian and Turkish, an unusual move suggesting the terrorist group was hoping for maximum exposure.

In Washington, US officials reached for comment said they had no reason to believe Al Baghdadi was not the speaker in the recording, and added there was no evidence he had been significantly injured, despite news reports saying he had been hurt.

The fact that such reports have remained in the news, along with other claims of setbacks, may have been enough to prompt the terrorist group to release the speech in an effort to avoid the appearance of a leadership crisis, said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a terrorism expert and author of a book on Al Qaida.

‘Signal to ranks’

“It is almost certainly a signal to their ranks,” said Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defence of Democracies, who was in Florida to brief Defence Department officials on Daesh and Al Qaida. “They understand that internal dissension and lack of internal messaging is a disadvantage.”

In the message, the man purporting to be Al Baghdadi cites Quranic verses to claim religious militancy is an obligation for all Muslims.

“O Muslims,” he says, “Islam was never for a day the religion of peace. Islam is the religion of war.”

“Your Prophet [PBUH],” he said, “was dispatched with the sword.”

Much of the speech focused on portraying the actions of the United States and coalition partners as being against Muslims overall, rather than aimed at the terrorist group.

“If the crusader today claims to avoid the Muslim public and to confine themselves to targeting the armed among them, then soon you will see them targeting every Muslim everywhere,” the speaker says, adding, “This war is only against you and your religion.”

The speech also emphasised the group’s growing reach, including mention of the “soldiers of the caliphate” in Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Egypt and Yemen and in West Africa.

The audio recording is not dated. However, a passing reference to the Saudi-led strikes in Yemen, known as Operation Storm of Resolve, has led Gartenstein-Ross to posit that the message is several weeks old.

Al Baghdadi refers to the strikes as “the storm,” and speaks of the operation in the present tense, suggesting it was still going on. That in turn suggests the message was recorded before April 21, when Saudi Arabia officially ended the operation.

Similarly, Al Baghdadi makes no reference to the May 3 attack in Texas. That assault was the first time that Daesh claimed responsibility for an operation on US soil, and given its significance, it appears to be an important omission in the speech — again suggesting that the recording was made earlier.

Aaron Y. Zelin, a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Studies, said the recording was one of just a few public addresses by the shadowy leader since he took control of Daesh in 2010. Zelin, who maintains an online archive of statements, said Al Baghdadi addressed his followers four times in 2014, twice in 2013 and once each in 2012 and 2011.

Zelin cautioned against reading too much into the timing of the speech, saying that rumours of Al Baghdadi’s demise were circulating last year as well. And he noted senior terrorist leaders can sometimes go years without a statement.

“It just depends,” he said.