ISIS leader Al-Baghdadi talks about North Korea threats to US and Japan in the newly released audio tape
ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi has reportedly been heard talking about North Korea threats to the US and Japan in a newly released audio tape.
The terror group released the recording of its leader on Thursday, the first communication from the elusive jihadist leader in almost year during which the group has lost much of the territory it controlled in Iraq and Syria.
The date of the 46-minute recording, released via the Al-Furqan news organisation, which is linked to the jihadist group, was not clear.
But Baghdadi makes reference to North Korean threats against Japan and United States.
The audio release, much of which is dedicated to religious scriptures, comes amid growing speculation over the fate of the Baghdadi, whose last recorded speech was issued in early November 2016, two weeks after the start of the battle for Mosul, when he urged his followers to fight the “unbelievers” and “make their blood flow as rivers”.
US-backed Iraqi forces have since defeated Islamic State in Mosul, where Baghdadi declared a self-styled caliphate three years ago.
Militants blew up Mosul’s El Nuri mosque where Baghdadi made his 2014 declaration after Islamic State captured the city.
Officials have said they believed it could take years to capture or kill Baghdadi as he is thought to be hiding in thousands of square miles of sparsely-populated desert between Mosul and Raqqa, where drones are easy to spot.
Russia’s defence ministry said earlier this year it may have killed Baghdadi when one of its air strikes hit a gathering of senior Islamic State commanders on the outskirts of the Syrian city of Raqqa but Washington said it could not corroborate the death and Western and Iraqi officials were sceptical.
War with North Korea is now a “real possibility” and hundreds of thousands of people are likely to be killed or injured, defence experts warned today.
A gruelling conflict would drag on with heavy losses on both sides, according to a leading think tank’s gloomy study of the deepening crisis gripping the Korean peninsula.
Combat would “not be surgical or short”, analysts feared.
Pyongyang is intent on developing a nuclear missile, with Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump trading insults as the drum beat to battle grows louder.
War could be triggered by either North Korea or the US but there is a growing risk the US President will decide to “resolve” the crisis “sooner rather than later”, according to the Royal United Services Institute.
Source: Mirror
