BEIRUT: Islamic State (IS) leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi yesterday called for attacks in Saudi Arabia in a speech purported to be in his name, saying his self-declared caliphate was expanding there and in four other Arab countries.
He said the US-led military campaign against his group in Syria and Iraq was failing and called for “volcanoes of jihad” the world over. The authenticity of the speech, an audio recording carried on IS-run social media could not independently confirmed. The voice sounded similar to a speech delivered by Al Baghdadi in July in a mosque in the Iraqi city of Mosul, the last time he spoke in public.
The speech follows contradictory accounts out of Iraq after US air strikes last Friday about whether he was wounded. US officials said on Tuesday they could not confirm whether Baghdadi was hit in a strike near Falluja in Iraq.
In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said she could not confirm the video’s authenticity and said the US and others were likely to increase efforts to counter IS claims to represent Islam.
“Clearly, the brutality, the rhetoric, efforts to incite, by any leaders of ISIL” is not a new phenomenon. It is a reminder to everyone in the region and the world of what their intentions are,” Psaki told reporters.
Al Baghdadi urged supporters in Saudi Arabia to join the fight as the kingdom has joined the US-led coalition in mounting air strikes against the IS group in Syria. Since IS began an offensive in Iraq in June, Saudi Arabia has sent thousands of troops to the border area.
The speech was not dated but carried a reference to a November 7 US announcement that President Barack Obama had approved sending up to 1,500 more troops to Iraq. Obama has said the US aims to degrade and destroy IS.
The jihadists have seized swathes of Syria and Iraq and in June declared a caliphate over territory it controls. Al Baghdadi said he had accepted oaths of allegiance from supporters in Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Algeria.
“We announce to you the expansion of the IS to new countries, to the countries of the Haramayn, Yemen, Egypt, Libya, Algeria,” Al Baghdadi said. The speech was transcribed in Arabic and translated into English.
Reuters
