'New Baghdadi tape' posted by Islamic State group
Islamic State militants have released what appears to be an audio recording of their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
A speaker who sounds like the IS leader seems to refer to recent North Korean threats against Japan and the US.
He also talks of battles for IS strongholds like Mosul, which was regained by Iraqi forces in July.
Baghdadi,
who has a $25m (£19m) US bounty on his head, has not been seen in
public since July 2014, leading to much speculation about his fate.
The
last time he appeared was to preach at the Great Mosque of al-Nuri in
Mosul after IS overran the city and a "caliphate" was proclaimed.
Asked
about the audio, a spokesman for US forces fighting IS, Ryan Dillon,
said "without verifiable evidence of his death, we have continued to
assume that he is alive".
A defence department spokesman told the
BBC: "We are aware of the audio tape purported to be of Abu Bakr
Al-Baghdadi and are taking steps to examine it. While we have no reason
to doubt its authenticity, we do not have verification at this point."
The
militant Sunni Muslim group IS, which earned notoriety for its brutal
violence towards civilians and prisoners, has been steadily pushed back
in Iraq and Syria this year.
The 46-minute recording was posted by a website with links to the group and is the first such speech to appear since November.
As
well as Mosul, the speaker refers to battles in Raqqa and Hama in
Syria, and Sirte in Libya, saying the bloodshed would not be in vain. He
also talks of Russian-brokered peace talks on Syria. Much of the tape
consists of religious references.
Baghdadi may be hiding in territory still controlled by IS along the Iraqi-Syrian border.
Less than a handful people would know his whereabouts, Hassan
Hassan of the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy wrote in a recent
article for BBC News.
That makes it hard for the US, which has dedicated special forces constantly on the look-out for him.
In
June, Russia reported that it was "highly likely" Baghdadi had been
killed in a Russian air force strike on Raqqa on 28 May, and an Iranian
official asserted he was "definitely dead" shortly afterwards.
However, claims of his death had been made before and the reports were treated with scepticism by US officials.
BBC
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