BALADI NEWS
The leader of the Islamic State Organisation Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi appeared for the first time in five years in a video released by the extremist group’s propaganda arm on Monday, acknowledging defeat in the group’s last stronghold in Syria but vowing a “long battle” ahead.
Baghdadi said the Sri Lanka bombings, which ISIS has claimed credit for, were intended as acts of revenge for the ISIS defeat in Baghouz. He said the Islamic State has conducted 92 terrorist operations in eight countries as “revenge for their brothers in Sham,” meaning the Syrian territory once held by the terror state.
The video released by Al-Furqan on Monday shows al-Baghdadi with a bushy grey and red beard, wearing a black robe with a beige vest and seated on the floor with what appears to be a machine gun propped up next to him. He is speaking with three men seated opposite him whose faces were covered and blotted out.
Despite numerous claims about his death in the past few years, the US-led coalition allocated a bounty of $25 million on his head, however, his whereabouts remain a mystery.
ISIS has lost its last bastion in Syria's Baghouz, Deir Ezzor's eastern suburb, after battles and clashes with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) backed by the International Coalition, where hundreds of ISIS fighters surrendered to the SDF, amid rumors of Baghdadi being in Syrian Desert or in the desert of Anbar province in Iraq.