Al Baghdadi appears in new propaganda video

The Daesh group’s leader Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi made his first appearance in five years in a propaganda video released yesterday, acknowledging his group’s defeat at Baghouz while threatening “revenge” attacks. The world’s most wanted man was last seen in Mosul in 2014, announcing the birth of Daesh’s much-feared “caliphate” across swathes of Iraq and Syria.

In the video released Monday by the extremist group’s propaganda wing, the man said to be Al Baghdadi referred to the months-long fight for Daesh’s final redoubt Baghouz, which ended in March.

“The battle for Baghouz is over,” he said, sitting crosslegged on a cushion and addressing three men whose faces have been blurred. He referred to a string of Daesh defeats, including its onetime Iraqi capital Mosul and Sirte in Libya, but insisted the extremists had not “surrendered” territory.