New Islamic State audio ends talk of leader’s death

IRBIL, Iraq – The Islamic State group on Thursday released a recording from its leader, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, that appeared to put to rest persistent rumors that he had been seriously wounded in a coalition airstrike two months ago and was incapacitated.

In the 35-minute audio posted on the Internet, which multiple experts identified as Baghdadi’s voice, the leader sounded in good health. He made reference to events, including the campaign in Yemen led by Saudi Arabia and Islamic State offensives in Baiji and Anbar province in Iraq, that began after the date in mid-March when he was supposedly wounded.

He called on all Muslims to join the caliphate he leads in Iraq and Syria.

“There is no excuse for any Muslim not to migrate to the Islamic State,” he said. “Joining is a duty on every Muslim.”

Those who cannot travel to Syria or Iraq should “carry weapons wherever you are,” he said, an apparent call for Islamic State sympathizers to carry out attacks at home.

Iraqi government spokesmen have been the primary sources for claims that Baghdadi had been wounded in an airstrike in mid-March, and in April they insisted that another militant was acting in his place at the top of the organization.

But the audio’s reference to fairly recent events suggests that those claims were without foundation, a cautionary reminder that much of what passes for information about the Islamic State’s inner workings is rife with speculation and rumor.

In the audio, Baghdadi condemns the Saudi-led intervention in Yemen, which began March 26, and he addresses ongoing Islamic State campaigns in Salahuddin and Anbar provinces, which began in early April.

Aymenn al Tamimi, who tracks jihadist groups and has organized a huge archive of Islamic State documents, said that much of the speech appears designed to rally the group’s supporters after the loss of Tikrit in April to Iraqi government forces, by far the worst military setback for the group in Iraq. Tamimi said the group released a document in April that made similar arguments.

“This should put to rest claims that he has been (killed or) incapacitated, which were always suspect in nature,” Tamimi said in an email.